[Pg 9] It must appear to all except the doctrinaire and those to whose eyes, seared by the red-hot passions of the war and the yet more angry passions of the Reconstruction period, no ray of light can ever come, that it is of vital importance that a sound solution of the problem should be reached. It behooves all who discuss it to do so in the most dispassionate and catholic spirit possible. The time has passed for dealing with the matter either in a spirit of passion or of cocksure conceit. Well-meaning theorists, and what Hawthorne termed “those steel machines of the devil’s own make,[Pg 10] philanthropists,” have with the best intentions “confused counsel” and made a mess of the matter. And after nearly forty years, in which money, brains, philanthropy, and unceasing effort have been poured out lavishly, the most that we have gotten out of it is the experience that forty years have given, and a sad experience it is. The best-informed, the most clear-sighted and straight-thinking men of the North admit sadly that the experiment of Negro suffrage, entered into with so much enthusiasm and sustained at so frightful a cost, has proved a failure, as those who alone knew the Negro when the experiment was undertaken prophesied it must, in the nature of things, prove. Only those who, having eyes, see not, and ears, but will not hear, still shut up their senses and, refusing to take in the plain evidences before them, babble of outworn measures—measures that never had a shred of economic truth for their foundation, and, based originally upon passion, have brought only disaster to the whites and little better to those whom they were intended to uplift. [Pg 10] [Pg 11] [Pg 11] II Two principles may be laid down to which, perhaps, all will assent. First, it is absolutely essential that a correct understanding of the question should be had; and, secondly, the only proper settlement of it is one that shall be founded on justice and wisdom—a justice which shall embrace all concerned. It is important that, at the very outset, we should start with proper bearings. Therefore, though it would hardly appear necessary to advert to the historical side of the question, yet so much ignorance is displayed about it in the discussion that goes on, that, perhaps, the statement of a few simple historical facts will serve to throw light
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