Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 11.pdf/198

 The Trial of John Brown. the end of slavery, a riddance for which, barring the terms and incidents of its depar ture, the whole country to-day congratulates itself. But with the overthrow of slavery there was also overthrown that splendid so cial feature which made of the South an Arcadia, at once the admiration and envy of the outer world; a social state under which was developed and presented to our country its first president, and a line of statesmen, soldiers and jurists whose names and achieve ments are interwrought in our national

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foundations, and adorn the best pages of our country's history. Upon the ruins of that ancient social fabric, founded upon agriculture and slave labor, there is erected another, based upon indus trial development. The former will be known in history as an extinct civilization — the latter, the " New South " is a living, po tent reality. In the place of slavery, local in the South, there is settled upon our whole country — the nightmare of the unsolved "negro problem."