FUTURE OF THE NEGRO IN THE SOUTH. 147 



THE FUTURE OF THE NEGRO IN THE SOUTHERN STATES. 



By Professor N. S. SHALER, 



" HARVARD UNIVERSITY. 



WHATEVER danger there may be of serious conflict between the 

 negroes and whites in the Southern States — at most but slight 

 — is likely to arise from the fact that the old class of slaveholders, 

 men accustomed to hold a caretaking relation to the lower race, is pass- 

 ing away. Already the greater number of the white people know the 

 blacks only as they are known by the Northern folk. Race prejudice, 

 which in the days of slavery was hardly more than formal, finding 

 expression mainly in certain rules as to the behavior of the inferior 

 class, is likely to increase in proportion as the two peoples become 

 parted from one another in interests. If the present movement to dis- 

 franchise the negroes should lead to their general and permanent 

 separation from political life, or if in elections they should again array 

 themselves as they did immediately after the war — under the lead of 

 white adventurers against the property interests of the commonwealth — 

 then there may be disaster. The aim of the statesman — of every citizen 

 in his quality of a statesman — should be to make the present political 

 separation of the races, as far as possible, temporary. Their effort should 

 be to develop in the blacks the qualities which may make them safe 

 holders of the franchise, and to give that trust to all who become 

 worthy of it. We may at once put aside all the futile expedients for 

 other dispositions of the negroes than the simple plan of adopting 

 them into our national life. The ancient project of returning them to 

 Africa, the suggestions that they should be deported to some part of the 

 American tropics, or be segregated in some one of the Southern States, 

 are all too impracticable to deserve a moment's attention. They 

 must be dismissed, if for no other reason, because the labor of the negroes 

 is needed where they now dwell. Their exodus would mean the com- 

 mercial ruin of half a dozen great States. It is hardly necessary to 

 suggest that any such action would involve a trespass upon the rights 

 of both the whites and blacks too great to be thought of in our day. 



Assuming that the only thing to do with the negroes is to shape 

 them so that they may be fit for the place of citizens, the question is 

 as to the steps which may be taken to attain this end. It is evident 

 that it cannot quickly be done. Acting on the basis of our experience 

 with immigrants from Europe, a majority of Congress concluded that 

 all the negro needed to convert him from the slave to the truly free man 



