Carolina, 31.5. And this comparison, significant as it is, does not show the whole extent of Southern white illiteracy, for the figures above given refer not merely to the native, but also to the foreign-born population. Putting aside the latter, one finds that while the average native white illiteracy in the North was but 3.2 per cent., that in the South was 24.7 per cent. Thus, of every four native-born whites in the Black Belt, three only even pretended to be able to read and write. The proportion of native white illiterates in the whole North was no more than one in thirtyIn Massachusetts it was considerably less than one in a hundred. So much for the demoralising influence of the situation upon the white man. I have now to review some of the suggested solutions to the race problem.

one.

CHAPTER V.

SOME SUGGESTED SOLUTIONS.

WHEN freedom was first given to the Slaves in the South, no one suspected that the measure was destined to create a new and more difficult phase of a problem which had already brought the Union to the verge of ruin. Nearly every one believed that manumission would, in course of time, solve the race question; and those who did not believe that manumission alone would produce this result, were apparently convinced that manumission combined with extension of the suffrage, and with the concession of full rights of citizenship to the freedmen, could not possibly fail to be efficacious; and so Amendment XV. was passed as a final panacea.

But, in fairness to the foresight of a discerning minority, it should be remembered that the amendment was not passed unanimously. It was rejected by California, Delaware, Kentucky, Indiana, Oregon, and Tennessee, and later, on reflection, by New York. It is true that it was

ultimately ratified by 29 out of 37 States. Several of these were, however, at the time under "Reconstruction," and the ratification from Virginia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas, may be supposed to have been to some extent exacted under duress. Still, the question of giving suffrage to the negro was not then anywhere regarded from the point of view from which it is now seen by the best men of all parties. As Judge Tourgée has pointed out, it was confidently predicted by every theorist who speculated upon the subject, that the negro would wither away under the influences of freedom and civilisation. It was unhesitatingly asserted, and almost universally believed, that the first decade of liberty would show the race to have been decimated by disease, debauchery, and the lack of the master's paternal care. It was not an unnatural conclusion for men to arrive at who devoutly believed in the negro's incapacity for self-support. Mr. Tourgée adds:

"That the people of the North should believe it also is hardly to be wondered at. They have always reflected the Southern idea of the negro in everything, except as to his natural right to be free and to exercise the rights of the freeman. The North, however, has never desired the numerical preponderance of the coloured man, and has especially desired

to avoid responsibility in regard thereto. From the first it seems to have been animated by a sneaking notion that after having used the negro to fight its battles, freed him as the natural result of the overthrow of a rebellion based on slavery, and enfranchised him to constitute a political foil to the ambition and disloyalty of his former master, it could at any time unload him upon the States where he chanced to dwell, wash its hands of all further responsibility in the matter, and leave him to live or die as chance might determine. It seems a hard saying, but there is very little doubt that, side by side with the belief in the Northern mind that the negro would disappear beneath the glare of civilisation, was a halfconscious feeling that such disappearance would be a very simple and easy solution of a troublesome question.

It being, then, the prevalent and all but general impression that the negro would soon die out, it scarcely occurred to legislators to question whether or nor it might complicate matters to make him, for his short season on earth, a full voting citizen. Had it been foreseen that, far from dying out, the negro would increase and multiply to an almost unheard-of extent, there would, we may be sure, have been much more hesitation than there was over the passing of Amendment XV. That amendment may be repealed at any time by the action of two-thirds of both Houses of Congress, and by subsequent ratification by three-fourths of the States of the Union; but to look for its repeal now is hopeless.

Colonel T. B. Edgington, a Northerner, re

cognising the menace of negro suffrage to Southern civilisation, proposed, in a speech delivered at Memphis in June, 1889, to get over this phase of the difficulty by limiting the right to vote among the negroes, and by making the office of voter, or suffragist among them, an elective office-an office that a man shall hold, say for four years, by election of the whole body of the people, or by election of the coloured people alone, if this course seem preferable. Thus no property or educational qualification would be required. The end desired could be attained by so adjusting and limiting the negro vote that it should not exceed say 5 or 10 per cent. of the white vote on any given question or issue.

There have been many other advocates in favour of limitation or suspension of negro suffrage; and a movement towards this end has lately made much progress in Mississippi; but, upon the whole, it seems to me that, as I have said, to look for the repeal of Amendment XV. is hopeless.

Nor would its repeal at the present date solve the difficulty. It would rather accentuate it; for the negro would not submit to be thus set back upon his upward path. Indeed, repeal of the Amendment is even more ridiculous as a remedy than is another measure which, nevertheless, has