Southern Questions

Author : Frederick Douglass
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781331105077
Total Pages : 50 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (5 download)

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Download or read book Southern Questions (Classic Reprint) written by Frederick Douglass and published by . This book was released on 2015-07-10 with total page 50 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Excerpt from Southern Questions In the simple fact that a few thousand freedmen have deliberately laid down the shovel and the hoe, quitted the sugar and cotton fields of Mississippi and Louisiana, and sought homes in Kansas, and that thousands more are seriously meditating upon following their example, the sober thinking minds of the South have discovered a new and startling peril to the welfare and civilization of that section of our country. Already apprehension and alarm have led to noisy and frantic efforts on the part of the South to arrest and put an end to what it considers a ruinous evil. I cannot be denied that there is much reason for this apprehension. This Exodus has revealed to southern men the humiliating fact that the prosperity and civilization of the South are at the mercy of the despised and hated negro. That it is for him, more than for any other, to say what shall be the future of the late Confederate States; that within their ample borders, he alone can stand between the contending powers of savage and civilized life; that the giving or withholding of his labor will bless or blast their beautiful country. Important as manual labor is everywhere, it is nowhere more important, and absolutely indispensable to the existence of civilization, than in the more southern of the United States. Machinery may continue to do, as it has done, much of the work of the North, but the work of the South requires bone, sinew and muscle of the strongest and most enduring kind for its performance. Labor in that section must know no pause. Her soil is prolific with life and energy. All the forces of nature within her borders are wonderfully vigorous, persistent and active. Aided by an almost perpetual summer, abundantly supplied with heat and moisture, her soil readily and rapidily covers itself with noxious weeds, dense forests and impenetrable jungles, natural hiding places for devouring wolves and loathsome reptiles. Only a few years of non-tillage would be required to give the sunny and fruitful South to the bats and owls of a desolate wilderness. From this condition, shocking for a southern man to contemplate, it is now seen that nothing less powerful than the naked iron arm of the negro can save her. For him, as a southern laborer, there is no competitor or substitute. The thought of filling his place by any other variety of the human family will be found utterly impracticable. Neither Chinaman, German, Norwegian nor Swede can drive him from the sugar and cotton fields of Louisiana and Mississippi. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.