laborers who had left them back on their plantations, others drove those
that had remained away, and thus increased the number of the unemployed.
Moreover, the great change had burst upon the country in the midst of the
agricultural labor season when the crops that were in the ground required
steady work to make them produce a satisfactory yield, and the
interruption of labor, which could not but be very extensive, caused
considerable damage. In one word, the efforts made could not prevent or
remedy, in so short a time, the serious disorders which are always
connected with a period of precipitous transition, and which, although
natural, are exceedingly embarrassing to those who have to deal with them.

The solution of the social problem in the south, if left to the free
action of the southern people, will depend upon two things: 1, upon the
ideas entertained by the whites, the "ruling class," of the problem, and
the manner in which they act upon their ideas; and 2, upon the capacity
and conduct of the colored people.

OPTIONS OF THE WHITES.

That the result of the free labor experiment made under circumstances so
extremely unfavorable should at once be a perfect success, no reasonable
person would expect. Nevertheless, a large majority of the southern men
with whom I came into contact announced their opinions with so positive an
assurance as to produce the impression that their minds were fully made
up. In at least nineteen cases of twenty the reply I received to my
inquiry about their views on the new system was uniformly this: "You
cannot make the negro work, without physical compulsion." I heard this
hundreds of times, heard it wherever I went, heard it in nearly the same
words from so many different persons, that at last I came to the
conclusion that this is the prevailing sentiment among the southern