ARE WE TO BECOME AFRICANIZED? 149 



as the inferior race increases in numbers and advances in education 

 will lead to inevitable conflict between the two races. As the negro 

 becomes numerically the stronger, and, through education, appreciates 

 more fully his present position, he will commence a struggle for the 

 mastery, and then the days of the Ku-klux will be eclipsed in blood 

 and slaughter. Such is the condition to which these ill-fated States 

 are hurrying. To ward off this impending evil, Judge Tourgee urges 

 upon the General Government the work of educating the blacks. Such, 

 in brief, is the " Appeal to Caesar." 



Education seems to be regarded as a universal panacea for all the 

 ills of the people, but in this case, according to the author's own state- 

 ment of the situation, the education of the negroes would but pre- 

 cipitate the impending conflict. Our only safety would seem to be in 

 leaving them in ignorance. 



The whole " Appeal " is based upon the theory that the negroes are 

 migrating southward from the border States into those of the South 

 Atlantic and the Gulf in great numbers. This theory the author 

 attempts to establish by deductions from census statistics. 



It may, in passing, be suggested that a careful revision of his 

 figures will show many important arithmetical errors, which may 

 modify very sensibly some of his conclusions. It is unnecessary to 

 follow his methods of reasoning, as the truth regarding the questions 

 at issue can be arrived at much more directly. The fact is, that the 

 negro is not migrating southward. There is no massing of the col- 

 ored people in the cotton States. In 1860 the colored element of these 

 States formed 66 per cent of the colored element of the country. 

 In 1880 it formed precisely the same proportion. Between 1860 and 

 1880 the colored element of the country increased 48 per cent. The 

 same element of the cotton States increased, in this interval, in pre- 

 cisely the same proportion, neither more nor less. These figures are 

 conclusive upon this point, and from them there is no appeal. 



But the fact remains that, in these cotton States, the colored ele- 

 ment was in 1880, in comparison with the white element, slightly 

 stronger than it was twenty years before. This, however, is due not 

 to a southward movement of the colored people, but to a decrease in 

 the rate of increase of the whites of those States. While the increase 

 of the native white population in the country at large between 1860 

 and 1880 was sixty-one per cent, that part of the same element resi- 

 dent in the cotton States increased but thirty-nine per cent. This low 

 rate of increase among the whites might seem to establish Judge 

 Tourgee's position, though not in the way he states it, were it not for 

 the fact that three fourths of this increase took place during the dec- 

 ade between 1870 and 1880. The increase of whites in the South 

 received a most effectual check during the four years of war, in which 

 every male capable of bearing arms was in the field, and in which 

 fully half a million laid down their lives. Since the war the white 



