IN the last year of his life General "Light Horse Harry" Lee made a visit to Dungeness,^* the residence of General Nathaniel Greene, on Cumberland Island, Georgia. While there he was attacked with a sickness which in the end proved fatal. His nurse was an old negro woman, the "momma" of the household. One day, in a paroxysm of nervous pain, he became enraged at her officious benevolence and threw a slipper at the old woman's head. There was a skillful dodge of the red bandanna, and then she deliberately picked up the slipper and hurled it back at him, with the words, "Dah, now! I aint gwine to let no white chile sass me; I aint."

  This incident, which is historic, illustrates the position of the "momma" or "mammy" in a Southern family in the olden time. She had rocked the cradle of her young master and crooned him to sleep with those weird melodies which are unsurpassed in the Mother Goose lore of any land. As he grew to manhood he was still her "chile," and she became, in turn, a grandmother in affection to the children of his household. In family affairs, in determining the components of a cake, the pattern of a garment, or some nice question of a neighbor's social status, she wielded that potent wand, "the wisdom of ancestors," and quoted "old marster" and "ole missus" with oracular confidence, inspired by the impossibility of contradiction. Jealous was she for the honor of "our family." The authority thus assumed was always good-naturedly acquiesced in; and, when ignored, she was overruled indirectly, so as not to shake the old soul's self-confidence in her infallibility or the children's veneration for her wisdom. The latter was a conservative influence too valuable to be sacrificed.

  Very similar was the position of the "old uncle." Even the harsh overseer, dressed in a little brief authority, took counsel of his weather wisdom and his "sperence" in planting to suit the moon. Over the dwellers in the quarters he was wont to take a patriarchal jurisdiction. The children, white and black, revered him not only for the stories of Brer Fox and Brer Rabbit, which a later Uncle Remus has told to all the world, but for the unexhausted stores of similar lore which remained locked in his venerable bosom. He always impressed the pickaninnies with the fact that he only told the half he knew. No grandsire ever had a more eager audience for his garrulity.

  What element in Cicero's charming picture "de Senectute" was lacking to make such an old age happy? Against all care and want these old attaches of the family were insured in the love of their owners, and, if that was not sufficient, in a legal obligation for their support. Who have had, more than they,

  What a change in all this was wrought by that otherwise beneficent stroke of Abraham Lincoln's pen, January 1st, 1863. Its results to the aged and aging negroes are more perceptible to-day than just after the close of the war. There is a sort of conservatism which modifies the first shock of a great revolution in the condition of a people. Because of this, no immediate and general breaking up of the plantation system occurred in the South in 1865. Many of the planters attempted to farm their lands as before, substituting paid labor for slave labor. In such cases, it made little difference to the kindly owner that the old negroes on the place should be pensioners on the supplies furnished by him for the plantation. But this system is decaying. The owner of broad acres finds it profitable to divide them into "settlements" and rent them to the "hands." Small farms are the order of the day. Many of the thrifty negroes are acquiring the ownership of the "patches" they cultivate. There is no place in these new economies for those who cannot take care of themselves. "Every sun sets upon a change which strips them of some refuge." Many of their old masters have died, unable to survive the wreck of their hopes and their fortunes; most of those who survive are too poor to requite the faithful service of their aged servants with the bounty they would gladly bestow.

  It might be supposed that this class of dependent negroes have their natural protectors in their children. But the separation of families which occurred during slavery, and which was one of its admitted evils, in most cases left parents and descendants ignorant even of each other's location. Many tenta-

  It was not long after "freedom come" before the freed people saw that they must find some substitute for the loss of the provision which slavery made for them in time of sickness and death. The majority of them were not capable of practicing the present self-denial required for "laying up something for a rainy day." But what was hard to do singly could easily be done by societies. These organizations for mutual help are very numerous throughout the entire South. Their names are startling, such as "The Independent Order of Immaculates," "The Military Sisters," "The White Ring Doves," "The Grand Champions of Distress," "The Rising Stars," &c. There are men's societies and women's societies, while some are composed of both sexes, as the "Sons and Daughters of Jacob." The members contribute monthly dues, usually twenty-five cents, for the following purposes: (1.) When any member is sick, a monthly benefit is paid, and all medicines prescribed by a physician are bought at the expense of the society. (2.) Upon the death of a member, the society pays the funeral expenses, which are on a somewhat extravagant scale, and a small benefit fund, supposed to be sufficient for pressing necessities at that time. The negroes pay a practical tribute to the usefulness of these organizations by sustaining them in spite of frequent defalcations on the part of their officers. The members are almost as loyal to them as to their churches. In all contracts for "service," the colored "help" invariably stipulates for the day of the monthly meeting and "all de funerals." It will be seen from this description that these societies are mutual, and that, valuable as they are for their members, they do not admit to their benefits the aged who are too poor to pay the dues, or who would be likely in a short time to become charges on the treasury. To sum up the case: The results of emancipation have brought only distressing conditions to the negroes who were aged at the close of the war (many of whom are still living, such is their remarkable longevity) and to those who were at that time too far advanced in years to acquire a competence for themselves before the feebleness of age has come upon them. Deprived of the assured peace and plenty of the old regime, unable to reap any of the benefits of the new, they afford an instance in human life of the truth so often observed in geological history, that types existing at the close of one era and the beginning of another bear the brunt of the change and struggle for existence in an unfriendly environment. The present relation of master and servant is governed purely by business principles. It is not expected that an employer will keep an employee longer than the latter can give value received in work. The relation does not now continue long enough between the same parties to create the sentiments which have been described. The old uncle and the old momma are impossibilities to this generation. Time has broken the die which molded them, and we shall not look upon their like again.

  The plantation parceled out to strange tenants, the old master dead, the children scattered,—Uncle Tom is left without a cabin!

  What, then, is the lot of the old negroes? The story of my Uncle Tom will partly tell. In it may be seen some of the lights and shadows of slavery. By the will of his master, who lived in one of the border States, he was entitled to manumission upon his arrival at the age of twenty-one. Shortly before that date he was "captured" by a slave-dealer, who paid a part of the profits of his sale to the young spendthrift who had become his master, and who had resolved to "set aside the old man's will." Tom's story of this outrage, delivered from the auction block, was regarded as the best joke of the sale day. No one would put himself to the inconvenience of believing it. But, after all, the lines fell to Tom in pleasant places. That such was his opinion of his lot, he had a unique opportunity of testifying. He became the body servant of the gallant General B——, who had left one leg in Mexico during the war. Tom accompanied him in his summer

  Tom's master threw himself with Southern ardor into the wild war passion of 1860. He declared that he could stand on his one leg and rout a Yankee regiment with his derringer. He offered to drink all the blood that was spilt. The death of his gallant son was one of the first forms in which his prophecies came home to him. He could not long survive the cause which seemed to him to represent all for which life was worth living. Among the mourners which followed his bier, no one was more sincere than Tom, for Tom was orphaned by his death. Since then, Tom, in his age and feebleness, has maintained a precarious struggle for existence, earning a quarter occasionally by working in a garden or sawing wood about town when the "rheumatics let up" on him. Other days he may be seen on the streets, toiling painfully along with that indescribable motion made by two inward-curved legs, each alternately coming from behind, alongside and in front of the other. His appeal for eleemosynary nickels is made with the removal of the hat—which serves at once to emphasize his bow and collect the coin. His dwelling is an old freight box-car, lifted from its wheels and shoved aside from the busy railroad track. There is a subtle sympathy between the shattered tenement and its worn-out occupant, both left superfluous on the edge of the rushing life which has cast them aside.

  But there are two days in which Uncle Tom is in his glory—a sovereign factor in their events. One is election day. In the Southern States poll-taxes are required of all voters under the age of sixty. There is no way of enforcing the payment of these taxes except where the voters have property out of which it may be raised by levy. Since the general ascendancy acquired by the white element in the South, in the years between 1872 and 1876, fully one-half of the negroes have quit voting. Having no stimulus to pay their annual poll-taxes, they are in default for periods ranging from five to ten years. To bring up these arrears costs more than most of the negroes value the privilege of the ballot. (Thus, indirectly, it is coming to pass that suffrage rests, in the main, upon a property qualification.) Voters over the age of sixty are exempt from poll-taxes. Hence, precious in the eye of the candidate of the aged negro. He is worth more than a score of able-bodied men. In the elections frequently occurring in the South on local option, the liquor men, who receive aid from the West, pay the taxes of their colored allies in order that their votes may be counted; but in other campaigns the election funds are not adequate to such outlays. In the ordinary State and county elections, in which the rival candidates bid for the colored vote, the venerable sovereigns are always in demand. They are treated to free rides to the polls in the "phaetons" which, after they have been worn out by the gentry, are used as hacks. Under shrewd management they are voted, with perfect innocence on their part, early and often. In the elections on the liquor question Uncle Tom is always solid for license. "Whisky was here when I come," says he, "and I want it to stay till I go." "But, Uncle Tom, slavery was here when you came, and you didn't want that to stay." The argument had no force. Uncle Tom had evidently extracted some good out of both evils, and was as unsound on abolition as on prohibition.

  The reference to elections brings up the negro problem. In a memorable interview with Mason and Vallandigham, John Brown said in 1859: "This question is still to be settled; this negro question, I mean. The end of that is not yet." This is as true today as when it was uttered. Immediately after the war, the bummers who followed the rear of the Federal armies, firing only with the torch, capturing only the jewelry of women, domiciled themselves in the land whose plunder had been their fatness. They became the controlling politicians of the era. They organized the negroes into leagues, and on election day marshaled these solid masses of ignorance with military discipline. Upon their votes these adventurers hoisted themselves and the worst types of their darky confederates into power, and played such fantastic tricks as the world has never seen since the days of Masaniello. It was the period of negro supremacy—the reign of terror. The "mud-sills" of the social fabric were the pillars of state. "The bottom rail was on top." In the nature of things, this could not last. During the years already mentioned, the white race in the various Southern States, by a desperate struggle, threw

  The instincts are regarded as outside of the region of ethics. The methods which overturned the carpet-bag and negro dynasties find their justification, if anywhere, in the instinct of self-preservation, which is a primary law of social as well as individual life. Of course, the high-souled men, whose simple faith in principle would prefer eternal martyrdom to expediency, protested against this phase of higher law. One of the greatest men in the South said in an address, frankly recognizing the state of public opinion:

  "I will add at the risk of meeting with some dissent possibly in my audience, certainly beyond it, that there is the same reason for rigid honesty in politics and public life, in elections and with electors and elected, as in ordinary private business or personal conduct. The political devil is no more to be fought with fire, without terrible consequences, than is the devil of avarice, or of envy, or of ambition, or any other of the numerous devils which infest society."

  But the masses of the whites could see no consequences in any mode of riddance so terrible as the political devil of negro domination. When public opinion is practically a unit, there is no dearth of hands ready to execute its decrees.

  Since this result has been accomplished, the rights of the colored population have been generally respected by the dominant element. A ruling race may in one day nominally accept its former slaves as its equals before the law; but the real adjustments in habits of thought and conduct must inevitably be gradual. Making allowance for this, it may be affirmed that, as a rule, justice is impartially administered. The purpose is to do that; failures come from the unconscious operation of past influences. The whites tax their property to maintain schools for the colored youth. The negro votes without molestation, and his vote is counted. General Toombs, the "old man terrible" of the South, declares, whenever an interviewer is within range, that every election in the South for ten years has been carried by fraud, intimidation, and violence. But the exaggeration of this statement is obvious from the fact that since the political "redemption" of 1872-6, these methods have been wholly unnecessary. The power of the negro organization has been effectively broken; no attempt to rally its forces on the color line has had any approach to success. Many of the colored people see that the whites of the South have done as well for them as the rulers they themselves set up. They never got from the latter the promised forty acres and a mule. They realize that they are to stay among the Southern white people, and must earn a living chiefly through their employment and patronage. Political gratitude is a lively sense of future favors, and it is not a special wonder when a "sovereign" who owes his ballot to one political party casts it in favor of the other.

  The strongest sentiment among the Southern whites is the determination to maintain their present supremacy. This is the meaning of the Solid South—solidarity in favor of home rule, and the domination of her intelligence in public affairs. She is not to be ruled by the blacks, nor by white men at home or abroad who owe their election exclusively to the blacks. On other questions there are divergences of opinion, but on the color line the unity of public feeling is complete. In such a platform there is nothing of hostility to the African per se; no unwillingness to accept him as a citizen with rights which the white man is bound to respect. Indeed, it may be safely said that the temporary reign of the negro was submitted to with more forbearance, and its overthrow accomplished with less of passion and violence, than if the Caucasian and the Chinese had been the parties to the issue. The purpose to retain the political mastery does not rest upon dread of "social equality." Amalgamation of races is too abhorrent to the Southern mind to seem a threatening probability. It has a natural barrier in the instinct of race, and is prohibited by enactments which have been upheld as constitutional in the United States courts. It has been plausibly suggested that the intermingling will begin along the line of the highest development of the black and the lowest of the white; but this is opposed by two facts. (1.) The sporadic cases of miscegenation have occurred among the lowest types of both races. (2.) The highest development of the negro type scorn such intermarriage with whites as is possible to them. In this fact lies a centrifugal force acting upon the negroes themselves. Of course, so long as there are gradations in society, we shall see exhibitions of that spirit which a French writer has defined "a desire to be equal to one's superiors and superior to one's equals." But among the negroes of intelligence and character, who believe they are as good as the white people because they are what God made them, there is growing up a self-respect and pride of race which forbids a pretentious

  Where, then, lies the hope for the political education which the negro can acquire only by the use of the ballot? Obviously, it is to be found only in a state of political parties which will permit the white voters to divide, and, by their division, enable them to divide the four millions of enfranchised blacks.

  In the minds of a majority, as I believe, of the Southern people, such a consummation is devoutly wished. The desire for it is based on many grounds. (1.) The danger is recognized of having a party in power without an opposition whose criticism and rivalry are sufficient to inspire a wholesome fear. The recent careers of several State treasurers in the South would have been impossible with an alert and vigilant opposition to scrutinize the administration of the public business. But the national office-holders and their small following have not the number or influence to make the dominant party watchful of its own rascals. (2.) The interest felt by the Southern people in politics is far more general than at the North. This results from the general cast and tendency of the Southern mind. "Its activity ran after affairs. It loved questions at issue. Contest was its delight. This mental predilection found its field of exploit in the twin sciences, politics and jurisprudence. Politics was the science of sciences, the art of arts, the absorbing popular study. Every hotel corridor was an open lyceum, every fireside an embryonic school of state-craft, every dinner-party a meeting of political scientists." These words explain why the South filled so large a place in politics before the war, but no place in literature. The tendency to political activity is as strong as it ever was, but it is cramped by the existing condition of affairs. There is but one side in politics, and many are beginning to chafe at its procrustean bed. The State offices within the gift of party are too few to "go around." Office-getting is coming more and more into the control of rings. In the "good old times," the party put forward its candidate, fought his battles, gave his barbecues, and paid the campaign expenses. Now all the candidates must enter into a "scramble" for the nomination (which is equivalent to election), and to secure it must ply their own resources. This has brought about a stagnation of political energy which is wholly unnatural to the people. Much of the seeming quietude is only the eager waiting for the stirring of the waters. (3.) Many persons are acting with the dominant party both in the North and South simply because they desire to ally themselves with the virtue and intelligence of their respective sections. This principle of political affinity allows no opportunity for the expression of individual opinion on the tariff, civil-service reform, or any of the questions of the time; yet such differences exist among the Southern people, and are increasing every day. Some of these may be here pointed out.

  While the South is solid in its purpose to prevent a recurrence of negro control, yet there is a wide difference of opinion as to the method by which this is to be done. One view of this question has already been indicated—that it would be fortunate if the whites and blacks could be divided on issues which would divide both classes, and thus eliminate the race issue. But there is a strong sentiment which would crystallize into perpetuity the present condition of absolute white rule and negro subjection in political affairs. Its advocates see a menace to their policy in the education of the negro, and they are outspoken in their opposition to it. They claim that the experiment has been tried and failed; that education has had no effect but to make those who have been educated too conceited to work; that in most cases the educated negroes have simply used their advantages to prey on the ignorance of their fellow-men; and that no real progress has been made by the race since the war. It is frequently uncharitable to charge those who hold a doctrine with their logical consequences; yet, while admitting that those who entertain the views just stated would disclaim such an inference, it must be said that the inevitable sequence of their opinions is the re-establishment of slavery. They are, in the main, the old men, whose opinions are too stiff with the fixity of age to bend to any pressure of truth. But it must also be owned that, even in the rising generation, there are young leaders who have

  The tariff also causes a division of public opinion; and the line of intersection on this subject is naturally coincident with that already drawn. The Old South, exclusively agricultural, was a unit for free trade; while the New, turning its attention to cotton-spinning and mining, favors a policy which will foster these interests. She sees in the tariff a temporary but necessary expedient for the upbuilding of new industries, and is naturally unwilling, after her section has paid tribute for a century to that policy, to abandon it at the very moment when it is beginning to aid in the development of her resources. Another issue which is deeply agitating the Southern States is the liquor question. It has leaped from Maine to Georgia, and from Iowa to Texas. It would seem that the next step which organized society is preparing to take toward the improvement of its conditions is in some way to abate the liquor nuisance as it now exists. This is a social question; yet the fact that it must be settled by election gives it a quasi-political character. Its introduction into party politics is to be deprecated; but if it should force its way there, the party which favored the suppression of the traffic as it is now carried on, or such taxation as would secure from it an indemnity against the cost of its evils, would carry more than half of the Southern States and heavy votes in all of them.

  These are a few of the questions which, if the danger of negro ascendancy could be removed, would cleave asunder the "Solid South." If sectionalism could only be allayed in the North, if the handful of federal office-holders in the Southern States would cease their futile efforts to rally the negroes against the whites in general elections, there are thousands of white men ready to vote with those at the North in whom they recognize their natural allies in patriotism and principle. Until this is done, the ghost of negro supremacy will not down, and the friends of the negro at the South will be powerless to aid his sympathizers at the North. The sooner these facts are recognized, the better for those whose welfare they affect.

  But there is another day besides that of an election when Uncle Tom will be a great hero. It is the day (may it not hasten!) of his funeral. In the negro mind, Death is a wonder-worker. The proverb that a living dog is better than a dead lion is, with them, exactly reversed. When one of them dies, has not his spirit passed at once to the "hallelujah land," and is not his body to be treated with a reverence befitting so grand a transition? In any rate, on that morning when the news is whispered on ashen lips that Uncle Tom is dead, all his neighbors who are none too kindly now, and all who ever knew him, and all who know that "they're gwine to have a funeralizin'," will vie with each other in the mournful solemnities of the occasion. The brass band will play the Portuguese hymn as the procession moves on to the church; the preacher will "hold his ear to the harp of heaven," and with ecstatic eloquence portray the bliss of "our bereaved brother." And we may be sure that the simple, faithful soul deserves it all.

Walter B. Hill.