Charles Warner - Studies in The South and West, With Comments on Canada

Slavery and isolation and a semi-feudal state have left traces that must long continue to modify social life in the South, and that may not wear out for a century to come. The new life must also differ from that in the North by reason of climate, and on account of the presence of the alien, insouciant colored race. The vast black population, however it may change, and however education may influence it, must remain a powerful determining factor. The body of the slaves, themselves inert, and with no voice in affairs, inevitably influenced life, the character of civilization, manners, even speech itself. With slavery ended, the Southern whites are emancipated, and the influence of the alien race will be other than what it was, but it cannot fail to affect the tone of life in the States where it is a large element.

When, however, we have made all allowance for difference in climate, difference in traditions, total difference in the way of looking at life for a century, it is plain to be seen that a great transformation is taking place in the South, and that Southern society and Northern society are becoming every day more and more alike. I know there are those, and Southerners, too, who insist that we are still two peoples, with more points of difference than of resemblance—certainly farther apart than Gascons and Bretons.

This seems to me not true in general, though it may be of a portion of the passing generation. Of course there is difference in temperament, and peculiarities of speech and manner remain and will continue, as they exist in different portions of the North—the accent of the Bostonian differs from that of the Philadelphian, and the inhabitant of Richmond is known by his speech as neither of New Orleans nor New York. But the influence of economic laws, of common political action, of interest and pride in one country, is stronger than local bias in such an age of intercommunication as this. The great barrier between North and South having been removed, social assimilation must go on. It is true that the small farmer in Vermont, and the small planter in Georgia, and the village life in the two States, will preserve their strong contrasts. But that which, without clearly defining, we call society becomes yearly more and more alike North and South. It is becoming more and more difficult to tell in any summer assembly—at Newport, the White Sulphur, Saratoga, Bar Harbor—by physiognomy, dress, or manner, a person’s birthplace. There are noticeable fewer distinctive traits that enable us to say with certainty that one is from the South, or the West, or the East. No doubt the type at such a Southern resort as the White Sulphur is more distinctly American than at such a Northern resort as Saratoga. We are prone to make a good deal of local peculiarities, but when we look at the matter broadly and consider the vastness of our territory and the varieties of climate, it is marvellous that there is so little difference in speech, manner, and appearance. Contrast us with Europe and its various irreconcilable races occupying less territory. Even little England offers greater variety than the United States. When we think of our large, widely scattered population, the wonder is that we do not differ more.

Southern society has always had a certain prestige in the North. One reason for this was the fact that the ruling class South had more leisure for social life. Climate, also, had much to do in softening manners, making the temperament ardent, and at the same time producing that leisurely movement which is essential to a polished life. It is probably true, also, that mere wealth was less a passport to social distinction than at the North, or than it has become at the North; that is to say, family, or a certain charm of breeding, or the talent of being agreeable, or the gift of cleverness, or of beauty, were necessary, and money was not. In this respect it seems to be true that social life is changing at the South; that is to say, money is getting to have the social power in New Orleans that it has in New York. It is inevitable in a commercial and industrial community that money should have a controlling power, as it is regrettable that the enjoyment of its power very slowly admits a sense of its responsibility. The old traditions of the South having been broken down, and nearly all attention being turned to the necessity of making money, it must follow that mere wealth will rise as a social factor. Herein lies one danger to what was best in the old régime. Another danger is that it must be put to the test of the ideas, the agitations, the elements of doubt and disintegration that seem inseparable to “progress,” which give Northern society its present complexity, and just cause of alarm to all who watch its headlong career. Fulness of life is accepted as desirable, but it has its dangers.

Within the past five years social intercourse between North and South has been greatly increased. Northerners who felt strongly about the Union and about slavery, and took up the cause of the freedman, and were accustomed all their lives to absolute free speech, were not comfortable in the post-reconstruction atmosphere. Perhaps they expected too much of human nature—a too sudden subsidence of suspicion and resentment. They felt that they were not welcome socially, however much their capital and business energy were desired. On the other hand, most Southerners were too poor to travel in the North, as they did formerly. But all these points have been turned. Social intercourse and travel are renewed. If difficulties and alienations remain they are sporadic, and melting away. The harshness of the Northern winter climate has turned a stream of travel and occupation to the Gulf States, and particularly to Florida, which is indeed now scarcely a Southern State except in climate. The Atlanta and New Orleans Exhibitions did much to bring people of all sections together socially. With returning financial prosperity all the Northern summer resorts have seen increasing numbers of Southern people seeking health and pleasure. I believe that during the past summer more Southerners have been travelling and visiting in the North than ever before.

This social intermingling is significant in itself, and of the utmost importance for the removal of lingering misunderstandings. They who learn to like each other personally will be tolerant in political differences, and helpful and unsuspicious in the very grave problems that rest upon the late slave States. Differences of opinion and different interests will exist, but surely love is stronger than hate, and sympathy and kindness are better solvents than alienation and criticism. The play of social forces is very powerful in such a republic as ours, and there is certainly reason to believe that they will be exerted now in behalf of that cordial appreciation of what is good and that toleration of traditional differences which are necessary to a people indissolubly bound together in one national destiny. Alienated for a century, the society of the North and the society of the South have something to forget but more to gain in the union that every day becomes closer.

The first time I saw New Orleans was on a Sunday morning in the month of March. We alighted from the train at the foot of Esplanade Street, and walked along through the French Market, and by Jackson Square to the Hotel Royal. The morning, after rain, was charming; there was a fresh breeze from the river; the foliage was a tender green; in the balconies and on the mouldering window-ledges flowers bloomed, and in the decaying courts climbing-roses mingled their perfume with the orange; the shops were open; ladies tripped along from early mass or to early market; there was a twittering in the square and in the sweet old gardens; caged birds sang and screamed the songs of South America and the tropics; the language heard on all sides was French or the degraded jargon which the easy-going African has manufactured out of the tongue of Bienville. Nothing could be more shabby than the streets, ill-paved, with undulating sidewalks and open gutters green with slime, and both stealing and giving odor; little canals in which the cat, become the companion of the crawfish, and the vegetable in decay sought in vain a current to oblivion; the streets with rows of one-story houses, wooden, with green doors and batten window-shutters, or brick, with the painted stucco peeling off, the line broken often by an edifice of two stories, with galleries and delicate tracery of wrought-iron, houses pink and yellow and brown and gray—colors all blending and harmonious when we get a long vista of them and lose the details of view in the broad artistic effect. Nothing could be shabbier than the streets, unless it is the tumble-down, picturesque old market, bright with flowers and vegetables and many-hued fish, and enlivened by the genial African, who in the New World experiments in all colors, from coal black to the pale pink of the sea-shell, to find one that suits his mobile nature. I liked it all from the first; I lingered long in that morning walk, liking it more and more, in spite of its shabbiness, but utterly unable to say then or ever since wherein its charm lies. I suppose we are all wrongly made up and have a fallen nature; else why is it that while the most thrifty and neat and orderly city only wins our approval, and perhaps gratifies us intellectually, such a thriftless, battered and stained, and lazy old place as the French quarter of New Orleans takes our hearts?