seek for and find many new sources of profit; they prepare the people for laws fostering the interest of the planter in many particulars; they mold the opinion of their neighborhood; and their ability, skill, and wealth slowly increase. They struggle with a new order of things, having to think for themselves at every turn, and often misstep and fall in the dark, but they pick themselves up, and find the way again. The light of the new experience which they are kindling grows brighter each year, and is beginning to draw some of their neighbors to travel in it. It is not our object to give a false impression of the influence of the class of farmers last referred to. They are but few, and their efforts are but the beginnings of the happy coming change. Their courage, power, and numbers are manifestly on the increase; and, as there is no other progressive activity in agriculture, and they meet no opposition save the passive resistance of despondency and inaction, it is almost certain that they will lay deep and sure the foundations of the needed renovation of the south. It is their belief that, to make agriculture generally prosperous, and to school the people to habits of thrift and saving, are the first steps, and that manufactories and trades and heterogeneous industries will naturally follow. They desire northern settlers, to add useful features to agricultural economy, and diversify planting. A few have come, and they are prospering. It seems rational to expect a steady influx of these for many years, bringing capital and methods better suited to the needs of the changed times, raising the value of landed property out of its impeding prostration, and strengthening the industrial force. The climate; the abundance of cheap, cleared land; the long settlement having demonstrated the country to be healthy; the fact that plowing and other important outdoor work can be done on the farms all the winter round; the many railways, the multiplying towns and growing cities; the variety of products, and easy access to market now that slavery and the animosity of war are gone, and the misrule of the carpetbagger has ended nearly everywhere these, and many other advantages daily disclosing themselves, excel most of the new States and the Territories in offering in ducements to immigrants; and, in due course of time, a vast number of settlers, both American and foreign, will be added to the population. There are many indications that the immigration of stock-raisers, wool-growers, market-gardeners, orchardists, bee-keepers, in fine, small farmers of every kind, adapted to the soil and climate, will soon begin in earnest. When it does, the rebuilding of the south will be rapid. The coming-in of northern capitalists, to invest in railways, mines, manufactories, and other large moneyed enterprises most especially to develop the great resources of water-powermay be expected to begin at once, and considerably, upon the close of the centennial year. It seems now that this is the most powerful agency that may be expected to begin immediate work, in introducing the much-needed higher type of industrial organization. The feelings of the two races toward each other were, for a few years after the war, bitterly hostile. The whites had, all their lives, seen the negroes in slavery, and from their infancy they had heard their preachers defend slavery, not in the abstract, as their phrase was, but in the concrete. The "concrete" meant African slavery, which was justified on the ground that the African was divinely intended in his nature for slavery, which was to him christianization and civilization, so long as he remained a slave; while, the moment he was set free, he would revert to his primitive barbarism. When these God-given slaves were suddenly cut loose from mastership, and the wealth of the capitalist, the portion of the orphan, and the mite of the widow were swept away at once by emancipation, either directly or as a necessary consequence, there was a great shock given to the whites. But when, three years afterwards, a new constituency was created, in which the slaves, just emancipated, outnumbered the whites, in many counties, the storm of passion that burst forth can hardly be described. The whites feared that the old relation was about to be inverted, and that they would be made slaves to the negroes. There was many a deed of violence, and many a poor negro paid his life for a few offensive words. or by example-whether he be prominent like Gordon or Lamar, or only a humble planter leading the fore-row in his fields — is seeking for and finding the right path. These leaders must, in the nature of things, have a larger following every year. In due time, their children and their children's children will make the south of a piece with the more prosperous portions of our country. [I intended to incorporate in the foregoing these two passages, but by some inadvertence they were not printed in their several places: I said of Von Holst : "Though he does not equal Mommsen's vivid delineation of the effects of Roman slavery, his work is in grateful contrast with most of the anti- and pro-slavery literature of America, by reason of his freedom from ethical declamation, and his presentation of the real evils of slavery, in the light of social, and especially economical, laws." I also said of the negro: "His flexibility; his receptivity to civilization, so different from the inveterate repugnance of the Indian; his satisfaction and almost complete freedom from discontent, insuring him against any violent change; the probably long necessity for his labor; are all great things in his favor."] 1 INDEX [To decide what is the right handle to a passage not pointed to Bayard, 241, 244. Beecher, Henry Ward, 152. Boley, 374, 408. Bonnivard, 128. Breckinridge, 266. Brockhaus, 296, 360. Brooks, Preston S., 237. Brown, John, 264, 270, 352. Brown, Joseph E., 317. Brown, Prof. William Garrot, 274, 289, 369. Buena Vista, 310. Bunyan, 145. Burgoyne, 317. Burke 41, 187, 204. Butler, 244. Bacon, 144. Bagehot, 437. Barnett, Samuel, 279. "Battle Hymn of the Republic," 205. C. Cæsar, 244, 343. California, 40, 80. |