Freed persons; Reconstruction (U.S. history, 1865-1877); Southern States -- Politics and government -- 1865-1950
What a general insurrection of the negroes would result in, whether it
would be easy or difficult to suppress it, whether the struggle would be
long or short, what race would suffer most, are questions which will not
be asked by those who understand the problem to be, not how to suppress a
negro insurrection, but how to prevent it. Certain it is, it would inflict
terrible calamities upon both whites and blacks, and present to the world
the spectacle of atrocities which ought to be foreign to civilized
nations. The negro, in his ordinary state, is docile and good-natured; but
when once engaged in a bloody business, it is difficult to say how far his
hot impulses would carry him; and as to the southern whites, the barbarous
scenes the country has witnessed since the close of the rebellion,
indicate the temper with which they would fight the negro as an insurgent.
It would be a war of extermination, revolting in its incidents, and with
ruin and desolation in its train. There may be different means by which it
can be prevented, but there is only one certain of effect: it is, that the
provocations be avoided which may call it forth.
But even if it be prevented by other means, it is not the only danger
which a reactionary movement will bring upon the south. Nothing renders
society more restless than a social revolution but half accomplished. It
naturally tends to develop its logical consequences, but is hindered by
adverse agencies which work in another direction; nor can it return to the
point from which it started. There are, then, continual vibrations and
fluctuations between two opposites which keep society in the nervous
uneasiness and excitement growing from the lingering strife between the
antagonistic tendencies. All classes of society are intensely dissatisfied
with things as they are. General explosions may be prevented, but they are
always imminent. This state of uncertainty impedes all successful working
of the social forces; people, instead of devoting themselves with
confidence and steadiness to solid pursuits, are apt to live from hand to
mouth, or to indulge in fitful experiments; capital ventures out but with
great timity; the lawless elements of the community take advantage of the
general confusion and dissatisfaction, and society drifts into anarchy.
There is probably at the present moment no country in the civilized world
which contains such an accumulation of anarchical elements as the south.
The strife of the antagonistic tendencies here described is aggravated by
the passions inflamed and the general impoverishment brought about by a
long and exhaustive war, and the south will have to suffer the evils of
anarchical disorder until means are found to effect a final settlement of
the labor question in accordance with the logic of the great revolution.
THE TRUE PROBLEM.--DIFFICULTIES AND REMEDIES.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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