to the country, by preparing the recently liberated negroes to assume intelligently the rights of citizenship. It is one of the highest evidences of his patriotism that Mr. Memminger should under the circumstances surrounding him, have forgotten his personal interests and safety in seeking to relieve the distress of his people. While others had sought safety for themselves in flight, and remained in security under the protection of foreign flags, he not only remained to share the fate of his people, but he volunteered in their behalf the wisdom of his counsel, which even his enemies in the light of a sad experience, must admit to have been as philosophic as the motives inspiring them were unselfish. and patriotic. On the 4th of September, 1865, while the political status of the negro was under discussion in Congress he addressed the following communication to President Johnson :

FLAT ROCK, September 4, 1865.;

To His Excellency Andrew Johnson, President of the United States :

Every Southern man is so deeply interested in the great questions of public policy which are now under your consideration that it will scarcely be deemed officious in one of them to offer you some suggestions, if made solely with a view to the public good. Although I am not personally known to your Excellency, and at present am under the ban of the government, yet I feel assured that your judgment can easily discern the ring of truth, and will justly appreciate any effort to relieve the immense responsibilities which are now pressing upon you.

I take it for granted that the whole Southern country accepts emancipation from slavery as the condition of the African race; but neither the North nor the South have yet defined what is included in that emancipation. The boundaries are widely apart which mark on the one side, political equality with the white race, and on the other a simple recognition of personal liberty. With our own race ages have intervened between the advance from one of these boundaries to the other. No other people have been able to make equal progress, and many have not yet lost sight of the original point of starting. Great Britain has made the nearest approach; Russia has just started, and the other nations of Europe, after ages of struggle, are yet on the way from one point to the other, none of them having yet advanced even to the position attained by England.

The question now pending is as to the station in this wide interval which shall be assigned to the African race. Does that race possess qualities, or does it exhibit any peculiar fitness, which will dispense with the training which our own race has undergone, and authorize us at once to advance them to equal rights? It seems to me that this point has been decided already by the laws of the free States. None of them have yet permitted equality; and the greater part assert the unfitness of the African by denying him any participation in political power.

The country, then, seems prepared to assign this race an inferior condition, but the precise nature of that condition is yet to be defined; and also the government which shall regulate it. I observe that you have already decided, and I think wisely, that the adjustment of the right of suffrage belongs to the State governments, and should be left there. But this, as well as most of the other questions on this subject, rest upon the decision which shall be made upon the mode of organizing the labor of the African race. The Northern people seem generally to suppose that the simple emancipation from slavery will elevate the African to the condition of the white laboring classes, and that contracts and competition will secure the proper distribution of labor. They see on the one hand the owner of land wanting laborers, and on the other a multitude of landless laborers without employment; and they naturally conclude that the law of supply and demand will adjust the exchange in the same manner as it would at the North. But they are not aware of the attending circumstances which will disappoint these calculations.

The laborer, in the Southern States, with his whole family occupies the houses of his employer, built upon plantations widely separate. The employment of a laborer involves the employment and support of his whole family. Should the employer be discontent with any laborers and desire to substitute others in their place, before he can effect that object, he must proceed to turn out the first, with their entire families, so as to have houses for their successors. Then he must encounter the uncertainty and delay in procuring other laborers; and also the hostility of the laborers on his plantation, which would probably exhibit itself in sympathy with the ejected families and with combinations against his interests. Should this occur at any critical period of the crop its entire loss would ensue. Nor would his prospects of relief from other plantations be hopeful. On them arrangements will have been made for the year, and the obstructions of laborers from them would result in new disorganizations. The employer would thus be wholly at the mercy of the laborer.

likely to fail in the perThe reasons are obvious.

It may be asked why the laborer is more formance of his contract than his employer? The employer, by the possession of property, affords a guarantee by which the law can compel his performance. The laborer can offer no such

guarantee and nothing is left to control him but a sense of the obligation of the contract. The force of this remedy depends upon the degree of conscientiousness and intelligence attained by the bulk of a people. It is well known that one of the latest and most important fruits of civilization is a perception of the obligations of contracts. Even in cultivated nations, the law must be sharpened at all points to meet the efforts to escape from a contract which has become onerous; and nothing short of a high sense of commercial honor and integrity will secure its strict performance. It would be vain under any circumstances to count upon such performance from an ignorant and ungoverned population. But when that population is, from constitution or habit, peculiarly subject to the vices of an inferior race, nothing short of years of education and training can bring about that state of moral rectitude and habitual and self-constraint which would secure the regular performance of contracts. In the present case to these general causes must be added the natural indolence of the African race, and the belief now universal among them, that they are released from any obligation to labor. Under these circumstances the employer would have so little inducements to risk his capital in the hands of the laborer, or to advance money for food and working animals in cultivating a crop which when reaped would be at the mercy of the laborers, that he will certainly endeavor to make other arrangements. The effect will be the abandonment of the negro to his indolent habits and the probable relapse of large portions of the country into its original forest condition. The two races, instead of exchanging mutual good offices, will inflict mutual evil on each other; and the final result must be the destruction or the removal of the inferior race.

The appropriate remedy for these evils evidently points to the necessity of training the inferior race; and we are naturally lead to look to the means which would be employed by our own race for the same purpose. The African is virtually in the condition of the youth, whose inexperience and want of skill unfit him for the privileges of manhood. He is subjected to the guidance and control of one better informed. He is bound as an apprentice to be trained and directed; and is under restraint until he is capable of discharging the duties of manhood.

Such, it seems to me, is the proper instrumentality which should now be applied to the African race. The vast body are now substantially in a state of minority, and are incapable of assuming the position of proper self-regulation. They have all their lives been subject to the control and direction of another, and at present are wholly incapable of self-government. Alongside of them are their former masters, fully capable of guiding and instructing them, needing their labor, and not yet alienated from them in feeling. The great point to be attained is the generous application by the one of his superior skill and resources,

and their kindly reception by the other. This can be effected only by some relation of acknowledged dependence. Let the untrained and incapable African be placed under indentures of apprenticeship to his former master under such regulations as will secure both parties from wrong, and whenever the apprentice shall have obtained the habits and knowledge requisite for discharging the duties of a citizen, let him then be advanced from youth to manhood, and be placed in the exercise of a citizen's rights and the enjoyment of the privileges attending such a change. I have no means of procuring here a copy of the laws passed by the British Parliament on this subject for the West India Colonies. They are founded on this idea of apprenticeship. Such an adjustment of the relations of the two races would overcome many difficulties, and would enable the emancipation experiment to be made under the most favorable circumstances. The experience of the British Colonies would afford valuable means for improving the original plans; and, no doubt, the practical common sense of our people can, by amending their errors, devise the best possible solution of the problem, and afford the largest amount of good to the African race.

The only question which would remain would be as to the government which should enact and administer the laws. Unquestionably the jurisdiction under the Constitution of the United States belongs to the States. This fact will most probably disincline the Congress to an early recognition of the Southern States upon their original footing under the Constitution, from the apprehension of harsh measures towards their former slaves. The difficulty would be obviated if a satisfactory adjustment could be previously made of the footing upon which the two races are to stand. If, by general agreement, an apprentice system could be adopted in some form which would be satisfactory as well as obligatory, it seems to me that most of the evils now existing, or soon to arise, would be remedied, and that a fair start would be made in the proper direction. The details of the plan could be adjusted from the experience of the British Colonies, and if it should result in proving the capacity of the African race to stand upon the same platform with the white man, I doubt not but that the South will receive that conclusion with satisfaction fully equal to that of any other State..

All of which is respectfully submitted, in the hope that laying aside all passion such an adjustment of this most important matter may be reached as in the end will be to the mutual good of both races, and advance, rather than retard, a return of prosperity to our country.

I am not aware that this communication was answered by President Johnson-at least I can find no record of the fact

among the papers of Mr. Memminger. The fact of history is that the Republican party, then in power, inflamed in

passion and controlled by a fanatical sentiment, not only prepared articles of impeachment against President Johnson for his alleged treasonable sympathy with the South, but passed the civil-rights bill, conferring all the rights of citi zenship upon the liberated slaves, irrespective of their fitness for the exercise of these functions, or of their "past condition of servitude."

With the cheering presence of his loved family circle, the entertainment of his library, and in correspondence with friends, there was at "Rock Hill" enough to engage the mind of Mr. Memminger and to bring a sweet solace to the disappointed hopes of the patriot. When not engaged with the details of his farm, he could always find about his hearthstone the superior joys of a noble, true life, and in the sympathies of his friends a consolation appreciated by him because of the sincerity of their expressions.

Among his letters received during the fall and winter of 1865, I find the following from General Lee, which gives a beautiful illustration of the character of the great chieftain, while it evidences his personal regard for Mr. Memminger: LEXINGTON, 27th November, 1865.

Hon. C. G. Memminger:

MY DEAR SIR,-Your letter of the 7th instant only reached me a few days since and has given me sincere pleasure. I have often thought of you in your distant home, with the prayerful hope that a kind Providence would shield you and yours from all evil, and I am truly glad to know that our merciful God has kept you under the shadow of His wing and has returned to you unharmed your brave sons.

Although our losses have been great, we have yet much to be grateful for, and since they have been permitted by Him who ordereth all things for our good, so I am assured it will be proved in this instance if we be but patient and faithful to the end.

Your kind sympathy and continued friendship are very cheering to me, and I trust I may be enabled to fulfill here the same purpose which has governed me in my previous life-to do the good I could to my State and country. If I can accomplish this it matters but little in what position I may be.

I hope your house at Charleston may soon be restored to you and that a new field of usefulness be opened to you and your sons—the resto