788 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



maintained, certain States might become exclusively colored, and so- 

 ciety therein sink toward a form of semi-barbarism. The white would 

 eventually be driven out by political corruption, maladministration, 

 and State bankruptcy. And let no man be deceived : if the native 

 whites are compelled to abandon certain Southern localities on account 

 of uninstructed colored predominance in local administration, the 

 Yankee, or any other who is studious of thrift, will not take their 

 place. Only a few sharpers, and the vultures in search of political 

 carrion, will be found there. But this alternative of the " negro prob- 

 lem " is not likely to be adopted. Hardly any party is ready to go 

 into history with such a policy, for, if it tripped, as it might, it would 

 be bad for such party. It is the teaching of all history that those 

 who have had freedom of self-rule have proved themselves competent 

 to take it and hold it in spite of despots. This self-assertion is a nec- 

 essary condition of freedom and its maintenance. There is no such 

 thing as freedom under exotic tutelage. If a people who are numeri- 

 cally in the majority can only be secured in their political rights by 

 national troops, then do such people illustrate political serfdom in be- 

 coming the tools of the party in power, and freedom becomes an abor- 

 tion by the method used to secure it. 



The problem, then, is to be determined on the presumption that 

 local self-government in the South shall be in the hands of those who 

 are competent to direct it ; and that existing forces, under which the 

 South has multiplied so rapidly in population during the last ten years, 

 shall continue to operate. 



Many of the planting-districts in the South contain already quite 

 as large a colored j)opulation as is compatible with interest and com- 

 fort. This is thoroughly felt, if not clearly seen, by the colored peo- 

 ple. They become the most dissatisfied with the situation, not where 

 they are distributed among the whites in smaller numbers, but in 

 districts where the colored population is greatest. Why so? Not on 

 account of political terrorism by any means, but on account of the 

 bad footing up at the close of the working-season. These are -the 

 places and this the reason which give rise to that recent phenomenon 

 known as the "ne^ro exodus." The tables indicate that there is emi- 

 gration from most of the former border slave States. But the move- 

 ment is individual, and not gregarious. It is undertaken with a rational 

 view of what is to be gained by the change, much after the fashion of 

 the whites, and it makes no noise in the newspapers as an "exodus." 

 Among the simple-minded and impulsive masses farther South it is 

 different. There it takes the form of a psychological epidemic, with 

 only a vague and fanatical conception of what is ahead. We have 

 only seen the beginning of this, perhaps, though the movement has its 

 drawbacks. Not the most provident now leave the South ; very gen- 

 erally, no doubt, the least so. Not the best hands come often the 

 worst. They have the old slave way, and the inaptitude for diversity 



