not dwell on a dreary recital of " woes un- 

 numbered ; that is not ray purpose. You will, 

 however, tolerate a passing remark upon the 

 disasterous troubles political adventurers 

 wrought in our midst: distrust, debts, municip- 

 al and state, and wholesale peculation, indica- 

 ted their presence. "The evil they did will live 

 after them." I affirm that the delays to the 

 complete and happy restoration of fraternity 

 and social peace and order may be attributed 

 solely, in the first instance, to those to whom [ 

 have alluded, and this I do readily, because I 

 know the desire of the hearts of the people of 

 the South to be fora perpetual peace, and a 

 firmer union of the States, as necessary to the 

 happiness of their children, their riches and 

 their prosperity. We believe that we have 

 passed through the worst, and that the merciful 

 Father, out of His abundant goodness, will 

 soon restore us to our constitution H! liberties 

 and equalities. Therefore we invite immigrants 

 to come and settle in our fair South, and offer 

 to all good men our friendship aud neighborly 

 regard. 



The negro is a problem to be solved. His 

 shackles are thrown by and rusty ; he will not 

 be enslaved by the white man any more. A mar- 

 itime people brought the African to us. We of 

 the South were never a maritime people. We in- 

 herited the evil ; and the good and wipe do not 

 regret its being crushed out. But he is incorpo- 

 rated into your political constitution as a citizen. 

 I think I know him well, as a slave, as a freed- 

 man, as a citizen. The older and most trustwor- 

 thy as laborers are daily decreasing. Their places 

 are supplied from a thriftless and idle youth 

 that manifest the greed of appetite ; seek to es- 

 cape honest rural labor, crowd into miserable 

 tenements in city, town or village, and there find 

 the lowest degradation. Some evince a strong 

 desire to attend the schools, and their best repre- 

 sentatives point the way. Common schools and 

 colleges have sprung up with the aid and en- 

 couragement of the whites, notably so in my 

 state. The policy that matures a true sentiment 

 of justice in the public conscience towards the 

 negro will find its truest advocates in the South. 

 Who can know better than the business men on 

 the farms and plantations how necessary his 

 labors are to the production of cur crops? His 

 faults are both moral and physical. Emanci- 

 pated, elevated to be a citizen, voter, political 

 vagrants have practiced upon his egregious van- 

 ity to secure personal ends. Acting under their 

 stimulus, and the unintelligible nonsense of 

 most of their orators and preachers, who bear 

 themselves with comic solemnity, they see 

 visions of glory and the angels, esteem them- 

 selves chosen of God, and bide patiently the good 

 time a- coming, when they shall put under their 

 feet the white race ; nor do they except from 

 this pleasant category their white affiliators. A 

 patient philosopher might endure all this comedy 

 if, at the same time, his judicious gaze was not 

 fixed upon the lurking spectre of a possible trag- 

 edy. To secure his liberty, his earnings, his re- 

 pose, is the honorable work of all Christians. 

 To magnify his importance above that of the 

 humble or ignorant white man, is to abjure our 

 blood; to guarantee higher immunities and priv- 

 ileges to him than to honorable and meritorious 

 white men, is to violate, in the gravest manner, 

 that Jaw of God which says, " that them shalt not 

 do to another that you would not he should do 

 to you." The problem remains the same. I. can 

 only see the solution of it in a mighty population 

 of the white race, each head of a family striving 

 upon his own homestead as a bread-winner and a 

 nation builder. The lands are ours, and we in- 

 vite their occupation by the white man. The 

 feebly idle and inglorious man, or race, goes 

 down in the struggle always. It can hardly be 

 doubted that slavery kept out of the South the 



hardiest, the thriftiest, the most energetic of the 

 crowds of home-seekers that plunged into the 

 wilderness of our country, in pursuit, of their in- 

 dividual gain. While New England and the older 

 settlements of America, with the emigrant tides, 

 were pouring to the West and Northwest, my 

 own state had been, for forty years, poxirinsr out 

 from her prolific hive her thousands of poor men 

 and ambitious young professionals,* to populate 

 the upspringinar states. West and South. The 

 great landed proprietors were crowding them 

 out from sheer force of circumstances ; f r^e 

 labor would not compete with slave labor. Pass- 

 ing by the South, it found its enterprise best re- 

 paid where there was no slavery. This accounts 

 for the growth of the great Northwest and West 

 in spite of the climate, and gives the answer to 

 the question, if asked, "Why, if your South-land 

 is so excellent, is there so much ot it vacant?" 

 In their easy-going way, our people indifferently 

 regarded emigration or immigration. 



But what of the present? I answer, the gates 

 are thrown wide open. As prejudice subsides 

 and the memories that civil wars engender die 

 out, the eyes of the home-seeker will view with 

 pleasure and his hands will lay hold with vigor 

 the astonishing riches of this glorious South- 

 land. 



The eye, coursing the entire sweep of the 

 South-country, from the Chesapeake to the Rio 

 Grande, along the Atlantic and Gulf coast plain, 

 rests upon a vast area of tertiary and past terti- 

 ary formation that indicates the character of the 

 soil. This is divided by the low plain of the Mis- 

 sissippi river, which possesses an inexhaustible 

 fertility; on the west of this the lands slope up- 

 ward to meet the great plains which extend to 

 the Rocky Mountains. Here is to be found the 

 largest capacity of production peculiar to such 

 geographical features. As the Appalachian range 

 is reached, other and older formatians are en- 

 countered, possessing the most valuable charac- 

 teristics, in lands of fertility, in woods, in min- 

 erals. An immense border of pine forests line 

 rho Atlantic aud Gulf coasts as far as the Sabine 

 river, furnishing lumber, pitch, tar, turpentine 

 for naval stores and the other innumerable uses 

 'f mankind. The interior is well wogded east of 

 the Mississippi and for some distance beyond, 

 with a great variety of useful and beautiful 

 trees. The live ak, of Florida and along the 

 gulf coasts to Indiauola, is invaluable for ship 

 timber. 



In North and South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, 

 Alabama, Mississsippi, Louisana, Texas, Arkan- 

 sas and West Tennessee, lie those magnificent 

 areas of land which yield the indispensable staple 

 that gives employment to so many hands, feeds 

 so many mouths, and fills the sails of so many 

 ships, without which we should lack our com- 

 monest necessaries. From 300 to 600 pounds of 

 lint may (accidents guarded) be counted upon 

 as the produce of a single acre. In certain spec- 

 ial localities the sea island staple, of higher ex- 

 cellence than the other fibre, is grown. The 

 culture of the cotton plant costs more exertion 

 but Jess skill than the production of corn ; it is 

 perhaps more difficult to save the lint at picking 

 time, in its highest perfection of lustre and 

 beauty, than to cultivate it. Its careless culti- 

 vation has ruined many plantations. It will not 

 suffer the presence of grass, and the hoe and scrap- 

 er must be kept going vigorously to insure its 

 growth and crop. Our people have learned a 

 great deal since 1865. The tendency in the minds 

 of cotton planters is to diversity their crops. 

 The probability is that they will in future plant 

 less area, and probably pick and sell more cot- 

 ton. 



I am, however, only a witness of the failures 

 of Middle Tennessee cotton planting. The same 



*411,000 emigrant s to 219.000 immigrants. 



