comes out when we call to mind that in America generally the construction of a new line of railway immediately and enormously enhances the value of the land through which it passes for fifteen miles on either side; that in the South about 2,800 miles of railway were constructed in the ten years here under consideration; and that in this one industry alone a capital not very far short of 20,000,000l. sterling was sunk. Yet, as we have seen, notwithstanding this vast outlay, and notwithstanding the further fact that the farming area thus opened by railway communication was more than doubled, the value of the farms themselves actually fell to less than one-half. After this one is prepared to find that much of the land once productive has returned to waste, the average under cultivation having decreased during the ten years about one-sixth; that there has been an immense falling off in the number of horses, sheep, milch cows, and stock generally, though the price of meat has risen very considerably; and, lastly, what is a matter of course under those circumstances, that farming implements have suffered a depreciation of fully one-half, notwithstanding the very great addition to the cost of the implements themselves, and, therefore, to their appraisement, due to the protective policy in force. While, however, as we have now seen, the value of property had fallen to less than a half in these distressing ten years, the taxation had more than doubled in the same period. In this statement we do not include the Federal taxes. How exorbitantly these have increased in consequence of the war, and how oppressive are the protective duties now levied, are matters of public notoriety. In this respect, however, the South bears a burden common to the whole Union, though, of course, its weight is more oppressive to her poverty than to the comparative wealth of the North and West. But we here refer only to the State, county, town, and other local taxation of the several States that formed the Confederacy. When we allow for the depreciation of the currency, and then compare the local taxation of 1860 in these eleven States-West Virginia being reckoned with Virginia-we find that it has more than doubled. But the wealth being in 1870 only half what it was in 1860, the burden on the taxpayer had really been multiplied more than four times. And this, it will be recollected, took place in five years, the fall of the Confederacy dating only from the early summer of 1865. With this oppressive increase of taxation the increase of debt fully kept pace, although, as will be remembered, the Confederate debt, and the various debts incurred in aid of the Confederacy by the States, counties,

VOL. CXXXIX. NO. CCLXXXIII.

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towns, and the like, were repudiated wholesale by the conquerors.

In 1860, it is not necessary to remind the reader, all property in the South was owned by whites-practically we may leave out of account the inconsiderable number of free people of colour to be found here and there. Upon the whites, therefore, fell the whole of the losses we have now been enumerating. These losses, as we have just explained, were of three kindslosses from the liberation of the slaves; losses from land going out of cultivation, from the destruction of property, and from the depreciation of that which remained; and losses from nonproduction, from the hindrance of that fructification of capital which was going on when the war broke out, and was continued elsewhere throughout the Union. Taking the lowest estimate the facts will admit of-calculating, that is, the increase that was prevented, not at the high rate that prevailed in the South itself during the preceding ten years, but at the retarded rate of the whole Union for the ten years under review-these several losses added together would amount to a sum exceeding the national debt of Great Britain by considerably more than a half. Such a sum, if now realised, would pay off the national debts of both the United Kingdom and the United States. Or, it would recoup France for all her losses in the disastrous war against Germany, exclusive of lives, but inclusive of the indemnity and of general damages; and it would yet leave a surplus nearly sufficient to buy up all the railways of England, Ireland, and Scotland. And this incredible loss was suffered in the brief space of ten years by a population no larger than the present population of Ireland. Truly, it is no wonder that there should be distress in the South. But is it all attributable to war and emancipation? Most certainly not.. Both Maryland and Delaware, as the reader knows, were slave States, yet the material and moral progress of both has been unquestionable. If it be objected that they escaped the ravages of war, then take the case of Missouri. Not only was Missouri a slave State, but, with the single exception of Virginia, no part of the South suffered more severely from hostilities. Yet there the value of farms has increased fifty per cent., and three million acres of new land are brought under cultivation. It is clear, therefore, that war and emancipation combined are not sufficient to account fully for the condition of the South as revealed to us in the Census Reports. What, then, are the causes which have aggravated the effects of internecine strife and social and industrial revolution? They are two: carpet-bag' misrule, and white ruffianism.

When the armies of Lee and Johnston surrendered, the government of the North found itself called upon to recast society in a conquered land inhabited by two antagonistic populations. The larger of these was, perhaps, the fiercest and the proudest upon earth. Until then it had been a caste apart, an aristocracy of wealth, intellect, and colour, resting upon and supported by a servile race, and wielding the destinies of a great country. The smaller had been the property of the superior people, and was actually without possessions, without knowledge, and without morals. It had just been freed by invading armies from the most terrible slavery the world has ever seen, and it was removed from absolute savagery by no more than two or three descents. Nothing, therefore, could be more evident than that, if these populations were left to themselves, the former would speedily re-enslave the latter. That, of course, was not to be permitted. After sacrificing a million of lives, and a thousand millions of money, in striking down a system, no people could or would allow it to be set up again. Under those circumstances the wise and humane course would have been to place the South for a generation under military government. It would have been wise, for it promised better than any other policy to attain the object in view-the pacification of the country. And it would have been humane: to the blacks, as it would have insured them full protection; to the whites, as it would have saved them from the last degradation of all in their eyes, that of being subjected to their own slaves. But the Federal Constitution promised a republican form of government to all the States, and the people of the North shrank from openly and avowedly, in the face of all the world, breaking through the unmistakable letter of the Constitution. We would not lightly reproach a people for not having undisguisedly violated a fundamental provision of their organic law. However little may be the value of a mere technical adherence to legal requirements, it is certain that without a respect even for the technicalities of law no free and stable government is possible. At any rate, it does not lie in the mouths of Englishmen to reproach others on account of such conduct. But whether praiseworthy or the reverse, the decision of the people of the North was to obey the letter of the Constitution. With that obedience, however, they rested satisfied. Congress, a mere creature of the Constitution, and with no more legal right, therefore, to interpret its construction than was possessed by any Southern legislature, undertook to decide what satisfied the requirement of a republican form of government.

It

imposed conditions, exacted guarantees, and over-rode the popular will. In short, it disfranchised the political people of the South, those who had been trained to public life, and had had experience in the conduct of affairs, and enfranchised those who had no more conception of political rights than they had of the ultimate constitution of matter. Of course, these latter could not carry on a government; therefore, from all parts of the Union there flocked to the South penniless adventurers, with philanthropy on their lips and the hope of plunder in their hearts. With the ingenuity in inventing nicknames characteristic of Americans, some denunciatory Southerners stigmatised these adventurers as carpet-baggers,' implying that they carried all their worldly goods in a carpet-bag. The nickname caught the popular fancy, and has clung to the class. Meantime the carpet-baggers' gained the confidence of the negroes, and succeeded in setting up in the several conquered States what pass for republican governments. It was not so much due to their own influence that they did so, for, in fact, they were introduced, if not put in their places, by the military governors appointed directly from Washington on the downfall of the Confederacy. Under such patronage, of course, they were readily accepted as leaders by the negroes. We have written this paper in vain if the reader is not prepared for the policy they at once adopted. It was, in a word, the transfer to the South of the worst practices of the Tammany Ring in New York. Each State was ruled by a corrupt knot of obscure politicians, who amassed fortunes in a few months by embezzlement, by bribe-taking, and by the sale of offices, of influence, and of contracts. Corruption managed the legislatures, presided in the State Houses, and sate on the bench of justice. While jobbery, collusion, and vulgar fraud wasted the finances and swelled the public expenditure. Half the proceeds of taxation never reached the state treasury, subsidies granted to railways went into the pockets of the rings,' the railways contracted for remained unmade, and loans subscribed were stopped on the way to the relief of the State necessities. To keep up the system, debt was heaped upon debt, and tax upon tax, until the taxpayer in multitudes of instances allowed his land to go out of cultivation from sheer inability to meet the ever-increasing demands thus poured in upon him. As part of this system the negroes were encouraged to crowd into the towns. We have already noted this movement as one of the great difficulties of agriculture in the South. Doubtless, it is to a very large extent spontaneous. But it has been deliberately fostered, and even in

6

stigated, by the carpet-baggers.' It used to be the policy of the slaveowners to keep the slaves as much as possible in the country. On the downfall of the Confederacy, consequently, the whites greatly outnumbered the blacks in the urban districts. But to maintain their power in the towns the carpet-baggers' found it necessary to entice negroes from the plantations where they would have been profitably employed. The ruffianism of the mean whites,' as in slavery times they used to be called, gave strength to the enticement. Under any circumstances, the lower class of whites would hardly have submitted quietly to the great revolution that was effected. But carpet-bag' misrule drove them altogether out of patience. Accordingly, when the Federal forces were reduced, secret societies, known as Ku Klux Klan,' sprang up all over the South, and the members proceeded to perpetrate the most atrocious outrages upon the negroes and such 'carpet-baggers' as fell into their power. Naturally, the prevalence of these outrages in the rural districts drove the negroes in large numbers into the towns in search of protection. Thus the criminal combinations of the whites reacted in injury upon themselves. They diminished the supply of labour in the country, already grievously insufficient, and, at the same time, they strengthened the power of the carpet-baggers in the towns, and thereby tightened the grasp upon their States of that very system under which the States were fast sinking into bankruptcy and anarchy.

When everything is said that can be said, however, in reprobation of the carpet-baggers'' misdeeds, it still remains true that the responsibility for the course of events in the South during the past eight years does not rest solely, nor even chiefly, upon them. In every emergency they have been able to reckon with certainty upon federal support, and it was this alone that gave them courage to act as they did. Had they been left with only negroes to back them up to settle matters face to face with the veterans of Lee's victorious armies, they would have speedily been reduced to the insignificance from which they emerged for their country's misfortune. They knew, however, that they had to render account neither to the whites nor to the blacks of the South, but only to the politicians at Washington; and with these the enormous sums of Southern money of which they disposed enabled them always to arrange matters pleasantly. It is this circumstance which, in American politics, at present constitutes the specially discouraging feature. For out of it has grown a system of ante-chambering, of government by back-stairs influences, which presents the germ