The Story of the Soil; from the Basis of Absolute Science and Real Life,

y and his host continued their

rust the protection of my wife and children as readily as to any white man. He has been educated, so to speak, to a sense of duty and honor; and negroes of his class have almos

a negro fail to remain faithful to his trust. They hid from the northern soldiers the horses and mules, cotton and corn, clothing and provisions, and all sorts of valuables; and in most cases were ready to suffer themselves before they would reveal the hidden property. To be sure the

y and crop yields dates largely from the fre

than many have supposed. The great injury to the South from the war was due to the war itself and not to the freeing of slaves. In the main it cost no more to hire the negro after the war than it cost to feed and clothe him before; and the humane slave owner had little difficulty in getting plenty of negro he

r itself, except that our recovery from it was greatly delayed by the reconstruction policy which was followed after the war. The immediate enfranchisement of the negro, es

place the power to govern the intelligent white of the South absolutely in the hands of their former ignorant slaves was undoubtedly the most abominable political blunder recorded in history; and even this was intensif

rothers of the South by putting them absolutely under negro government. And yet there is one possible justification for that abominable reconstruction policy. It may have averted a subsequent war which might have lasted not for fo

th certainty at once and for

e established, might have required a subsequent war of many years for its complete eradication. Even under the conditions which have prevailed, there have been isolated instances of peonage in the southern states since the war; and if th

made would probably have been such that the South would have felt in honor bound to enforce them. Probably the enfranchisement would have been based upon some sort of qualification such as the southern states h

ever, talked with a southern man who did not have it firmly fixed in his mind that the common idea of the northern people is that the negro race should be made the social equal of the white race. This I have hear

could be farther from the truth. In all my life in the North, I think I have never seen a colored person dining with a white man. This does not prove that there are no such occurrences, but it certainly shows that they are extremely rare. On the other hand, in traveling through the South I have

aps we would all prefer to say that the negroes have learned to talk as we talk; but the truth is that the negroes were brought to America chiefly as adults; and, as is usually the case when adult people learn a new language, they modified ours because th

very general rule the white children learned to talk as their negro nurses talked. So far

e trained along right lines; and I think the modficaton of our language which his presence has brought about in the South

South, and really, it seems to me, the only difference of importance, is that the South has separate sc

d as a place for work, where each has his own work to do, much the same as in the shop or factory where both white and colored are employed. The expense of the single school system is, of course, much les

moral training. It is conceivable that the moral influence of the white children over the negroes in the same school might exert a lasting benefit, even aside from the influence of the teacher; and the relationship of the school room could not be any real disadvantage to the white child. But this could only be brought about where

eat majority of the Northern people. Indeed, it is extremely doubtful if the North will be able to completely banish such a so