_ CHAPTER LXI. WHAT SHALL THE END BE?
Two men sat upon one of the benches in the shade of a spreading elm in the shadow of the National Capitol, as the sun declined toward his setting. They had been walking and talking as only earnest, thoughtful men are wont to talk. They had forgotten each other and themselves in the endeavor to forecast the future of the country after a consideration of its past.
One was tall, broad, and of full habit, with a clear blue eye, high, noble forehead, and brown beard and hair just beginning to be flecked with gray, and of a light complexion inclining to floridness. He was a magnificent type of the Northern man. He had been the shaper of his own destiny, and had risen to high position, with the aid only of that self-reliant manhood which constitutes the life and glory of the great free North. He was the child of the North-west, but his ancestral roots struck deep into the rugged hills of New England. The West had made him broader and fuller and freer than the stock from which he sprang, without impairing his earnestness of purpose or intensity of conviction.
The other, more slender, dark, with something of sallowness in his sedate features, with hair and beard of dark brown clinging close to the finely-chiseled head and face, with an empty sleeve pinned across his breast, showed more of litheness and subtlety, and scarcely less of strength, than the one on whom he gazed, and was an equally perfect type of the Southern-born American. The one was the Honorable Washington Goodspeed, M.C., and the other was Hesden Le Moyne.
"Well, Mr. Le Moyne," said the former, after a long and thoughtful pause, "is there any remedy for these things? Can the South and the North ever be made one people in thought, spirit, and purpose? It is evident that they have not been in the past; can they become so in the future? Wisdom and patriotism have thus far developed no cure for this evil; they seem, indeed, to have proved inadequate to the elucidation of the problem. Have you any solution to offer?"
"I think," replied Le Moyne, speaking slowly and thoughtfully, "that there is a solution lying just at our hand, the very simplicity of which, perhaps, has hitherto prevented us from fully appreciating its effectiveness."
"Ah!" said Goodspeed, with some eagerness, "and what may that be?"
"Education!" was the reply.
"Oh, yes," said the other, with a smile. "You have adopted, then, the Fourth of July remedy for all national ills?"
"If you mean by 'Fourth of July remedy,'" replied Hesdeu with some tartness, "that it is an idea born of patriotic feeling alone, I can most sincerely answer, Yes. You will please to recollect that every bias of my mind and life has been toward the Southern view of all things. I doubt if any man of the North can appreciate the full force and effect of that bias upon the minds and hearts of those exposed to its operation. When the war ended I had no reason or motive for considering the question of rebuilding the national prosperity and power upon a firmer and broader basis than before. That was left entirely to you gentlemen of the North. It was not until you, the representatives of the national power, had acted--ay, it was not until your action had resulted in apparent failure--that I began to consider this question at all. I did so without any selfish bias or hope, beyond that which every man ought to have in behalf of the Nation which he is a part, and in which he expects his children to remain. So that I think I may safely say that my idea of the remedy does spring from a patriotism as deep and earnest as ever finds expression upon the national holiday."
"Oh, I did not mean that," was the half-apologetic rejoinder; "I did not mean to question your sincerity at all; but the truth is, there has been so much impracticable theorizing upon this subject that one who looks for results can scarcely restrain an expression of impatience when that answer is dogmatically given to such an inquiry."
"Without entirely indorsing your view as to the impracticality of what has been said and written upon this subject," answered Le Moyne, "I must confess that I have never yet seen it formulated in a manner entirely satisfactory to myself. For my part, I am thoroughly satisfied that it is not only practicable, but is also the sole practicable method of curing the ills of which we have been speaking. It seems to me also perfectly apparent why the remedy has not previously been applied--why the patriotism and wisdom of the past has failed to hit upon this simple remedy."
"Well, why was it?"
"The difference between the North and the South before the war," said Le Moyne, "was twofold; both the political and the social organizations of the South were utterly different from those of the North, and could not be harmonized with them. The characteristics of the
social organization you, in common with the intelligent masses of the North, no doubt comprehend as fully and clearly as is possible for one who has not personally investigated its phenomena. Your Northern social system was builded upon the idea of inherent equality--that is, of equality and opportunity; so that the only inequality which could exist was that which resulted from the accident of wealth or difference of capacity in the individual.
"The social system of the South was opposed to this in its very elements. At the very outset it was based upon a wide distinction, never overlooked or forgotten for a single moment. Under no circumstances could a colored man, of whatever rank or grade of intellectual power, in any respect, for a single instant overstep the gulf which separated him from the Caucasian, however humble, impoverished, or degraded the latter might be. This rendered easy and natural the establishment of other social grades and ideas, which tended to separate still farther the Northern from the Southern social system. The very fact of the African being thus degraded led, by natural association, to the degradation of those forms of labor most frequently delegated to the slave. By this means free labor became gradually to be considered more and more disreputable, and self-support to be considered less and less honorable. The necessities of slavery, as well as the constantly growing pride of class, tended very rapidly toward the subversion of free thought and free speech; so that, even with the white man of any and every class, the right to hold and express opinions different from those entertained by the bulk of the master-class with reference to all those subjects related to the social system of the South soon came to be questioned, and eventually utterly denied. All these facts the North--that is, the Northern people, Northern statesmen, Northern thinkers--have comprehended
as facts. Their influence and bearings, I may be allowed to say, they have little understood, because they have not sufficiently realized their influence upon the minds of those subjected, generation after generation, to their sway.
"On the other hand, the wide difference between the
political systems of the North and the South seems never to have affected the Northern mind at all. The Northern statesmen and political writers seem always to have proceeded upon the assumption that the removal of slavery, the changing of the legal status of the African, resulting in the withdrawal of one of the props which supported the
social system of the South, would of itself overthrow not only that system, but the political system which had grown up along with it, and which was skillfully designed for its maintenance and support. Of the absolute difference between the political systems of the South and the North, and of the fact that the social and political systems stood to each other in the mutual relation of cause and effect, the North seems ever to have been profoundly ignorant."
"Well," said Mr. Goodspeed, "I must confess that I cannot understand what difference there is, except what arose out of slavery."
"The questien is not," said Le Moyne, "whether it
arose out of slavery, but whether it would of necessity fall with the extinction of slavery
as a legal status. It is, perhaps, impossible for any one to say exactly how much of the political system of the South grew out of slavery, and how much of slavery and its consequences were due to the Southern political system."
"I do not catch your meaning," said Goodspeed. "Except for the system of slavery and the exclusion of the blacks from the exercise and enjoyment of poitical rights and privileges, I cannot see that the political system of the South differed materially from that of the North."
"Precisely so," said Le Moyne. "Your inability to perceive my meaning very clearly illustrates to my mind the fact which I am endeavoring to impress upon you. If you will consider for a moment the history of the country, you will observe that a system prevailed in the nou-slaveholding States which was unknown, either in name or essential attributes, throughout the slaveholding part of the country."
"Yes?" said the other inquiringly. "What may that have been?"
"In one word," said Le Moyne--"the 'township' system."
"Oh, yes," laughed the Congressman lightly; "the Yankee town-meeting."
"Exactly," responded Le Moyne; "yet I venture to say that the presence and absence of the town-meeting--the township system or its equivalent--in the North and in the South, constituted a difference not less vital and important than that of slavery itself. In fact, sir, I sincerely believe that it is to the township system that the North owes the fact that it is not to-day as much slave territory as the South was before the war."
"What!" said the Northerner, with surprise, "you do not mean to say that the North owes its freedom, its prosperity, and its intelligence--the three things in which it differs from the South most materially--entirely to the Yankee town-meeting?"
"Perhaps not entirely," said Le Moyne; "but in the main I think it does. And there are certain facts connected with our history which I think, when you consider them carefully, will incline you to the same belief."
"Indeed; I should be glad to know them."
"The first of these," continued Le Moyne, "is the fact that in every state in which the township system really prevailed, slavery was abolished without recourse to arms, without civil discord or perceptible evil results. The next is that in the states in which the township system did not prevail in fact as well as name, the public school system did not exist, or had only a nominal existence; and the proportion of illiteracy in those states as a consequence was,
among the whites alone, something like four times as great as in those states in which the township system flourished. And this, too, notwithstanding almost the entire bulk of the ignorant immigration from the old world entered into the composition of the Northern populations. And, thirdly, there resulted a difference which I admit to be composite in its causes--that is, the difference in average wealth. Leaving out of consideration the capital invested in slaves, the
per capita valuation of the states having the township system was something more than three times the average in those where it was unknown."
"But what reason can you give for this belief?" said Goodspeed. "How do you connect with the consequences, which cannot be doubted, the cause you assign? The differences between the South and the North have hitherto been attributed entirely to slavery; why do you say that they are in so great a measure due to differences of political organization?"
"I can very well see," was the reply, "that one reared as you were should fail to understand at once the potency of the system which has always been to you as much a matter of course as the atmosphere by which you are surrounded. It was not until Harvey's time--indeed, it was not until a much later period--that we knew in what way and manner animal life was maintained by the inhalation of atmospheric air. The fact of its necessity was apparent to every child, but how it operated was unknown. I do not now profess to be able to give all of those particulars which have made the township system, or its equivalent, an essential concomitant of political equality, and, as I think, the vital element of American liberty. But I can illustrate it so that you will get the drift of my thought."
"I should be glad if you would," said Goodspeed.
"The township system," continued Le Moyne, "may, for the present purpose, be denned to be the division of the entire territory of the state into small municipalises, the inhabitants of which control and manage for themselves, directly and immediately, their own local affairs. Each township is in itself a miniature republic, every citizen of which exercises in its affairs equal power with every other citizen. Each of these miniature republics becomes a constituent element of the higher representative republic--namely, a county, which is itself a component of the still larger representative republic, the State. It is patterned upon and no doubt grew out of the less perfect borough systems of Europe, and those inchoate communes of our Saxon forefathers which were denominated '
Hundreds.' It is the slow growth of centuries of political experience; the ripe fruit of ages of liberty-seeking thought.
"The township is the shield and nursery of individual freedom of thought and action. The young citizen who has never dreamed of a political career becomes interested in some local question affecting his individual interests. A bridge is out of repair; a roadmaster has failed to perform his duty; a constable has been remiss in his office; a justice of the peace has failed to hold the scales with even balance between rich and poor; a school has not been properly cared for; the funds of the township have been squandered; or the assumption of a liability is proposed by the township trustees, the policy of which he doubts. He has the remedy in his own hands. He goes to the township meeting, or he appears at the town-house upon election day, and appeals to his own neighbors--those having like interests with himself. He engages in the struggle, hand to hand and foot to foot with his equals; he learns confidence in himself; he begins to measure his own power, and fits himself for the higher duties and responsibilities of statesmanship."
"Well, well," laughed Goodspeed, "there is something in that. I remember that iny first political experience was in trying to defeat a supervisor who did not properly work the roads of his district; but I had never thought that in so doing I was illustrating such a doctrine as you have put forth."
"No; the doctrine is not mine," said Le Moyne. "Others, and especially that noted French political philosopher who so calmly and faithfully investigated our political system--the author of 'Democracy in America'--clearly pointed out, many years ago, the exceptional value of this institution, and attributed to it the superior intelligence and prosperity of the North."
"Then," was the good-natured reply, "your prescription for the political regeneration of the South is the same as that which we all laughed at as coming from Horace Greeley immediately upon the downfall of the Confederacy--that the Government should send an army of surveyors to the South to lay off the land in sections and quarter-sections, establish parallel roads, and enforce topographic uniformity upon the nation?
"Not at all," said Le Moyne. "I think that the use of the term 'township' in a
double sense has misled our political thinkers in estimating its value. It is by no means necessary that the township of the United States survey should be arbitrarily established in every state. In fact, the township system really finds its fullest development where such a land division does not prevail, as in New England, Pennsylvania, and other states. It is the
people that require to be laid off in townships, not the land. Arkansas, Missouri, Alabama, all have their lands laid off in the parallelograms prescribed by the laws regulating United States surveys; but their
people are not organized into self-governing communes."
"But was there no equivalent system of local self-government in those states?"
"No; and there is not to-day. In some cases there are lame approaches to it; but in none of the former slave States were the counties made up of self-governing subdivisions. The South is to-day and always has been a stranger to local self-government. In many of those states every justice of the peace, every school committeeman, every inspector of elections is appointed by some central power in the county, which is in turn itself appointed either by the Chief Executive of the State or by the dominant party in the Legislature. There may be the form of townships, but the differential characteristic is lacking--the self-governing element of the township."
"I don't know that I fully comprehend you," said Goodspeed. "Please illustrate."
"Well, take one state for an example, where the constitution adopted during the reconstruction period introduced the township system, and authorized the electors of each township to choose their justices of the peace, constables, school-cominitteemen, and other local officials. It permitted the people of the county to choose a board of commissioners, who should administer the financial matters of the county, and, in some instances, exeicise a limited judicial authority. But now they have, in effect, returned to the old system. The dominant party in the Legislature appoints every justice of the peace in the state. The justices of the peace of each county elect from their number the county commissioners; the county commissioners appoint the school-committeemen, the roadmasters, the registrars of election and the judges of election; so that every local interest throughout the entire state is placed under the immediate power and control of the dominant party, although not a tenth part of the voters of any particular township or county may belong to that party. In another state all this power, and even more, is exercised by the Chief Executive; and in all of them you will find that the county--or its equivalent, the parish--is the smallest political unit having a municipal character." _