The Return of Good Feeling [pp. 557-562]

RETURN OF GOOD FEELING.
be moral and industrious in their habits, they will be valuable la borers and members of society, increase the national wealth, di minish the expense of living, will multiply in numbers and be
flourishing and happy. The States, each left to regulate in its own
way, the social, legal and political status of the negro will furnish
such a variety of experiments, that the wisdom and statesmanship
of the nation sitting calmly in judgment on them, will be able to
deduce from them the best method of disposing of the intricate
social problem that now perplexes and harasSes us. The most
enthusiastic fanatics should be willing to await patiently the re sult of such experiments, for sooner or later experience, and that
alone, will bring about the solution of this matter. Shall this experience and this solution be arrived at by peaceful means and
calm reflection, or shall we blindly rush forward to attain it
through civil discords, and blood and anarchy? We have employed these latter means with none but the direst effects sufficiently long, and the nation is now prepared and about to fall back
upon the former. If we succeed in making the negro moral, industrious and useful, the good feeling now existing between the
sections will daily strengthen, and the Union become more harmonious and closely cemented than ever. For every pecuniary
interest, North and South, would be almost equally benefited by
such a change in the state of affairs.
The production of Southern staples would at once be doubled,
and in a few years quadrupled. This would give new life and vigor
to the manufacturing, mechanic, commercial and shipping interests of the North, all of which are now rapidly decaying and almost perishing under the ruinous policy of fanaticism and corrupt
radicalism. The South in such event would be able and willing
to bear its share of the weight of Federal taxation, and in so far
relieve the North fiom the present enormous and ruinous burden
of that taxation. Besides, fifty millions of that taxation would at
once be wiped out by the withdrawal of Federal troops from the
South.
Half of even the good lands in the South, if we include Texas,
have not yet been occupied and put in cultivation; thus we offer
to the -crowded Noi-th-east, a vast and fertile field for immigration; but such offer will be scornfully rejected so long as negro equality, or negro rule and supremacy continue to exist
amongst us; for no honest, independent white man, will subject
himself to negro association and equality, no matter how much he
might thereby better his pecuniary condition. Nor would Southerners remain here, did they believe the present state of social and
political affairs was to be of long continuance. The result of the
late Northern elections, however, gives assurance of the renewal
of amicable feelings on the part of that section, and of the speedy
removal from office of the cruel, fanatical, corrupt, and imbecile
Radicals, who now persecute and oppress us.
Yet on the subjects of immigration to the South, and emigration
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