Where are We?

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Apr 18, 1871

In April, 1865, the military power of the Rebellion was finally broken, after a four years’ struggle. In the six years following, how far have we carried the greater work of restoring order and peace to one half of the nation?

The contradictions of the partisan press can no longer obscure the existence of the gravest evils throughout the South. It is established, past all reasonable question, that there prevails an uncontrolled spirit of lawlessness, which continually breaks out into the worst violence and outrage. By floggings, expulsions, and murders, a large part of the community in the South are kept in constant terror. These outrages are not the occasional and incidental outbreaks of an imperfectly civilized section. Their vast number, the character of their victims, and the tolerance or concealment given to them by a very large class, mark them as belonging to a political persecution. Nor, further, is it to be denied that at some times and in some sections—as Tennessee and North Carolina—the persecuted party, gaining power, have retaliated with almost equal lawlessness and bitterness upon their foes. But far the greater burden of these sins of violence falls on the enemies of the negro.—Christian Union.