Page:The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15.djvu/633

future opens for this nation a larger horizon than the most impassioned Fourth-of-July orator in the old times dared to draw. Fail in this result, and the future holds endless disorders, with civil war reappearing at the end. If, therefore, there be any general principle to assert, any essential method to inculcate, its adoption is the most essential statesmanship. Twenty millions of white men, with ballots and school-houses, will be tolerably sure to thrive, whatever be the legislation: legislation for them is secondary, because they are assured in their own strength. But four millions of black men, just freed, and as yet unprovided with any of these tools,—the fate of the nation may hinge on a single error in legislating for them.

Now there are but two systems possible in dealing with an emancipated people. All minor projects are modifications of these two. There is the theory of preparation, under some form, and there is the theory of fair play. Preparation is apprenticeship, prescription, the bargains of the freedman made for him, not by him. Fair play is to remove all obstructions, including the previous monopoly of the soil,—to recognize the freedman's right to all social and political guaranties, and then to let him alone.

There is undoubtedly room for an honest division of opinion on this fundamental matter, among persons equally sincere. Even among equally well-informed persons there may be room for difference, although it will hardly be denied that those who favor the theory of "preparation" are in general those who take a rather low view of the capacities of the emancipated race. The policy pursued in Louisiana, for instance, was undoubtedly based at the outset, whatever other reasons have since been adduced, on the theory that the freedmen would labor only under compulsion. I have seen an elaborate argument, from a leading officer in that Department, resting the whole theory on precisely this assumption. "The negro, born and reared in ignorance, could not for years be taught to properly understand and respect the obligations of a contract. His ideas of freedom were merged in the fact that he was to be fed and clothed and supported in idleness." Whatever excuses may since have been devised for the system, this was its original postulate. To suppose it true would be to reject the vast bulk of evidence already accumulated, all demonstrating the freedmen's willingness to work. Yet if the assumption be false, any system founded on it must be regarded by the freedmen as an insult, and must fail, unless greatly modified.

In organizing emancipation, one great principle must be kept steadily in mind. All men will better endure the total withholding of all their rights than a system which concedes half and keeps back the other half. This has been admirably elucidated by De Tocqueville in his "Ancien Régime," in showing that the very prosperity of the reign of Louis XVI. prepared the way for its overthrow. "The French found their position the more insupportable, the better it became. . . . . It often happens that a people which has endured the most oppressive laws without complaint, and as if it did not feel them, throws them off violently the instant the burden is lightened, . . . . and experience shows that the most dangerous moment to a bad government is usually that in which it begins to mend. The evil which one suffers patiently as inevitable seems insupportable as soon as he conceives the idea of escaping it. All that is then taken from abuses seems to uncover what remains, and render the feeling of it more poignant. The evil has become less, it is true, but the sensibility is keener."

Every one who is familiar with the freedmen knows that this could not be a truer description of their case, if every word had been written expressly for them. The most timid laborer on the remotest plantation will not bear from his superintendent or his teacher the injustice he bore from his master. The best-disciplined black soldier will