TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE NEW PHASE OF AMERICAN POLITICS. THE negro is still master of the American situation. Upon every other point the prospects of the Union are suffi- ciently bright, but emancipation promises, as De Tocqueville predicted, to be but the beginning of the great negro difficulty. East of the Mississippi resistance to Federal authority is everywhere at an end, the foolish threats of a vast guerilla movement to be carried on by a defeated soldiery in the midst of hostile labourers having been at last silenced by the irre- sistible facts. The strength of the South, as we have for four years repeated weekly to unheeding ears, consisted solely in the compactness of its evil organization, and on the day that organization failed the Confederacy ceased to exist. The few planters left alive are flying northward, or betaking them- selves to their homes, to await in silence the measures of re- construction, the white farmers are returning to labour, and asking for army mules with which to plough, and the negroes are waiting patiently till, as they say, they "know as well as hear of" their emancipation. Thousands of active Nor- therners are hastening South, to see if they cannot re-organize the cotton cultivation with free labour, and as between the whites the bitterness which preceded and accompanied the war seems to be fast disappearing. SD sure is the Federal Government of its position, that it is disbanding its forces with what seems to us a scarcely wise rapidity, break- ing up its magnificent transport organization, sending home the 150,000 soldiers of the great army of the West with which Sherman marched across the Confederacy, dismissing all short-time recruits, and only retaining those who enlisted for three years until it has decided on the form of reconstruction. The blockade has been lifted except for Galveston, and in Texas, though the friends of the South talk boastfully of its resources, the Government has no fear. That vast State has received many immigrants, who naturally enough boast loudly of their determination to fight on, but the bulk of the people have never been heartily pro-slavery, the leading secessionists see a clear road open into Mexico, and the remainder, even when disloyal, are well aware that resistance to the Union would be a mere waste of life and treasure. The wild talk of aid from the Emperor Maxi- milian is talk uttered in defiance of all the facts, and the hope of assistance from France cannot now deceive even the men who believed that they could compel Europe to choose between an insurrection of hungry operatives and the recog- nition of an Empire based on slavery. In a few weeks the -Union flag will be flying from the capitol of every State, and Mr. Johnson's agents will be obeyed as readily as those of any European monarch.
The work of reconstruction remiins, and with regard to the whites, the task promises to be unexpectedly easy. The ignorant white population of the South, thinned by the war, aware for the first time that the Northerners fight as well as themselves, with no slaves to lose, and easy access to land, are in no mood for the only kind of resistance which would prove effectual. Accustomed to follow their leaders, they are as ready to take their cue from the new masters of the country as from the territorial magnates, and all observers report that they show an unexpected absence of bitter feeling. If an oath of allegiance is imposed many of them will, it is believed, accept it, and vote for State authorities who upon most points will be in harmony with the central power. On most points, but not on all, for the passion of race ascendancy, the instinct of the Anglo.Saxon for keeping down all not of his own colour, is not as yet extinguished, and the ruling men of the North fear that unless the negro has a distinct voice at the polls, the States will yet pass laws re-establishing all but the name of slavery. The testimony of coloured men will be disregarded, injuries to blacks will not be redressed by juries, and a severe vagrant law will compel the freedmen to work under penalties not imposed upon the whites. The old Committees of Vigilance will still keep the coloured population in terror, and though wages will be paid, that aristocratic tone which has been so nearly fatal to the Union will be still maintained. The leading minds of the North declare that if it is maintained, if society in one section of the Union is still based on the subjection of the labouring class, the war will one day have to be fought out over again, and are eager to discover a plan which may per- manently prevent the evil. Many have been suggested, but the only one compatible with the internal independence of the States, which the North is as reluctant as the South to surrender, is to invest the negro with the franchise. Once possessed of this privilege, it will be the interest of the white politician to conciliate the coloured man ; each party in turn, as it finds itself on the verge of defeat, will seek the aid of the despised class, and the negro, aware of his importance, will in a few years secure all that legislation can secure for him—absolute and practical equality before the law. Social equality he must secure for himself, and he has one immense example to give him hope and courage. The hatred of the American for the black is pale by the side of the hatred once borne by all Europe to the Jew, for it has not, as that had, the support of a religious instinct. It is not a hundred years since in any country of Europe a taint of Jewish blood would have been considered a disgrace, and to-day there is not a free country in Europe, except Spain, in which men of that bloofi are not eagerly chosen as representatives of the people ; and in Austria, Prussia, and France, the special Jewish intellect exercises a marked effect on politics. On the other hand, the opponents of the negro hold that of all propositions this of conceding the franchise is the most detestable. It is a visible guarantee of that equality which they reject with scorn, and tends directly to that amalgamation which they regard with a kind of sacred horror. The parties therefore shattered by the war are grouping themselves once more, the abolitionists,. republicans, religious men, and men of progress generally demanding, and the pro-slavery democrats refusing, the fran- chise to the coloured race. The contest is raging in every society, and will affect every election, for the privilege if con- ceded must be granted both by Congress and the separate State Legislatures, by Congress for the District of Columbia, and by the States for every other election. The battle, we suspect, whether in Congress or in the State Legislatures, will be long and bitter, but it must be won at. last. Mr. Johnson has evidently made up his mind to sur- render the State Governments in the South to the "loyal inhabitants" only, and the loyalists are under an irresistible temptation to admit the negro. His vote if accepted not only gives them a permanent majority, but completely alters their whole moral position. Deep down in the American heart lies the dogma that moral right in politics rests with the mass of the people, and the taunt that the loyalist member represents only a minority, a clique, and not the people, will be very keenly felt. Once admit that the coloured man is a citizen and the taunt is pointless, for in half the States of the South the loyalist will sit as the representative of a numerical, majority, and the quality of the electors has in America never been considered. For once the democrat's contempt for intel- lectual qualification as a preliminary to the suffrage,—his reso- lution to see no difference between an Irish porter and Mr. Everett,—will produce substantial good, enabling him to accept. and quote the votes of a class he himself deems inferior with- out a moral qualm. Add to the moral temptation the material one of a lease of power which will last certainly for one gene- ration, and we may fairly expect that the loyalists will, per- haps with some inward annoyance, admit the negro's right te the privileges all around him enjoy. They may retain, per- haps for a while ought to retain, a qualification for members, but they cannot hope to keep down both the white and the coloured populations, to rule on Republican principles through the vote of a minority. The negro once admitted, the diffi- culty will in the South be over, for the State Legislatures will. and can protect their electors from violence at the polls. It might be very dangerous in a State like New Jersey for a negro to exercise his franchise, even should he obtain it, for he might be lynched by an irresponsible mob. He cannot be lynched in the South. Negroes are there as numerous as the whites, and nothing prevents the Legislature from giving them a similar organization, from enrolling the whole negro popu- lation among the militia, or embodying them in fire brigades. Once organized and sure of fair play, they can guard themselves just as easily and effectually as the whites, can secure for them- selves, at all events, the position occupied by the natives of India. Few white men in India marry natives, and in a hundred years only one white woman is known to have done so ; but the two races possess absolutely equal privileges the feebler can neither be struck, nor robbed, nor interfered with in any way whatever. If it is in him to get to the top he gets to the top, and the native member of Council takes precedence of the highest white in the Empire not belonging to that body. More than this it will be impossible to secure, at least until either a great change has taken place in opinion, a change of which we see little likelihood, or a great modification in the negro's social status. The capacity of the negro is as yet very nearly an unknown quantity. It may be that he is capable of rivalling the white man in all the works of civilization, or of raising up by his side a civilization as lofty as his own, though 'utterly different in kind. It may also be that he has not that power, that he can rise only to the level reached by the free races of Asia, that he will find a point such as the Chinaman has found, at which progress gives place to incessant repetition. If he proves in his free condition industrious, frugal, and inventive, capable like a Parsee of commerce, or like a Japanese of devising an original mode of life, all the prejudices in the world will not prevent him, once free, from attaining social power. If, on the other hand, he is not industrious, or accumulating, or inventive, then he ought not to have the social respect he desires, any more than a similarly disqualified white man. He must find his place for himself, and, provided that the law protects him, has no more right to complain of the social disadvantage of colour than of the social disadvantage of short stature. All he can ask, or a white man can ask, is a clear field and no favour, and that once obtained he must reach his goal for himself. There may be better ways of obtaining it for him than the concession of the suffrage, and we confess that the experiment strikes us as one attended with some risk, but as yet we can see no other plan which would as certainly secure the intended result—the absolute legal freedom of every person within the Union. So strongly is this felt in the North that Mr. Chase, who is understood to be the next Republican candidate for the Presidency, has not scrupled to tell a large community of coloured men that were he the Government, he would secure for them the suffrage without restrictions and without delay.
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