Page:Confederate Military History - 1899 - Volume 12.djvu/362

546 wages and income has been almost one-half, while similar plants in the South have run on full time steadily and have supplied the shortage caused by the closing of the manufactories at the North.

With the account of the great strides made by the South since 1880, one will ask, What became of the great negro problem, which for nearly three hundred years has been a running sore in this country? In nearly every stage of our history, this vexed problem has caused division, irritation, bitter political discussions, sectional animosities, and conflicting interests in material development. Even in the constitutional convention of 1789, our wisest statesmen knew and said that the States were divided between those having slaves and those not having them, or about getting rid of them. This division existed down to the war between the States; in fact, slavery was the irritating cause which divided the North and the South on sectional lines in the construction of the Constitution. The negro since the war was still the irritating cause which kept the sections wide apart, and was responsible for the harsh reconstruction epoch. He owed his freedom to a war necessity. He was the cause of the drastic political experiments inaugurated by Northern statesmen. From a slave he was made a full citizen, with full political rights.

These were thrust upon him suddenly, without any previous training or preparation. At the same time he was made to face the white man in the great problem of competition, while his aspirations and instincts were entirely different from the stronger ruling race; the one race thrifty, dominating, accumulative and full of enterprise and progress, the other not inclined to lay up wealth or better its condition. For awhile the negro was the ward of the nation, and money was lavishly spent to hold him in his new responsible position, but this had its end.