At first sight it will appear to most of the Northern people over-much to ask that the powers at Washington give up all efforts to deal with the needs of the negro folk--the so-called wards of the nation. Yet experience has shown the impracticability of the project of helping these negroes with the long arm of the Federal law. All that has been undertaken in this way has been fruitless or worse. The only chance for lifting the black man to the full status of the citizen is by leaving his future essentially in the hands of the masterful folk who alone can help him. We see that the ruling class in the South have a measure of interest in the status of the negro and an opportunity to benefit his state that can never belong to the people of the North. Although the country, as a whole, will, of course, suffer from the failure to elevate the blacks, the burden will lie most heavily on those with whom they dwell. The Southern whites have given evidence of political capacity of a high order. Even their blunder in the rebellion is in good part compensated for by the sagacity with which they accepted the results of the war and turned them to the best account they could. They are not likely to cower before the vast undertakings which the uplifting of the blacks will entail; as yet, they have not accepted the task as their own. They have indeed been brought to believe that their business was to defend their own class interests, as well as they might be able to, against the attacks of the negroes, aided by the Federal power. If they are forced to see that within the limits the Federal Constitution sets to action, the responsibility for the future of their several States is in the hands of those who control their politics, we may hope to find the political and economic skill which went to the development of the system of slavery given to the advancement of the Africans. While the work must needs be done by the men who are near to it, it should receive every possible aid and sympathy from those who, because they are far away, can not effectively control the matter. The cause is so large that it needs the help of all who wish it well.