Let us send to-day a few words to the fair-minded Republicans of the North. Here is a fundamental assertion—the negroes of the South can never be kept in antagonism with their white neighbors—for the intimacy and friendliness of the relation forbids. This friendliness, the most important factor of the problem—the saving factor now as always—the North has never, and it appears will never, take account of. It explains that otherwise inexplicable thing—the fidelity and loyalty of the negro during the war to the women and children left in his care. Had Uncle Tom’s Cabin portrayed the habit rather than the exception of slavery, the return of the Confederate armies could not have stayed the horrors of arson and murder their departure would have invited. Instead of that, witness the miracle of the slave in loyalty closing the fetters about his own limbs—maintaining the families of those who fought against his freedom—and at night on the far-off battle-field searching among the carnage for his young master, that he might lift the dying head to his humble breast and with rough hands wipe the blood away, and bend his tender ear to catch the last words for the old ones at home, wrestling meanwhile in agony and love, that in vicarious sacrifice he would have laid down his life in his master’s stead. This friendliness, thank God, has survived the lapse of years, the interruption of factions, and the violence of campaigns, in which the bayonet fortified, and the drum-beat inspired. Though unsuspected in slavery, it explains the miracle of ’64—though not yet confessed, it must explain the miracle of 1888. Can a Northern man dealing with casual servants, querulous, sensitive, and lodged for a day in a sphere they resent, understand the close relations of the races of the South? Can he comprehend the open-hearted, sympathetic negro, contented in his place, full of gossip and comradeship, the companion of the hunt, the frolic, the furrow, and the home, standing in kindly dependence that is the habit of his blood, and lifting not his eyes beyond the narrow horizon that shuts him in with his neighbors? This relation may be interrupted, but permanent estrangement can never come between these two races. It is upon this that the South depends. By fair dealing and by sympathy to deepen this friendship and add thereto the moral effect of the better elements compacted, with the wealth and intelligence and influence lodged therein—it is this upon which the South has relied for years, and upon which she will rest in future.