The war waged upon the American South is estimated to have cost the lives of a million persons, during and after the conflict, and a total of $8,000,000,000, which, “with destruction of property, derangement of the power of labor, pension system and other economic losses, would reach thirty billions of dollars.” A practical and peaceful abolition proposal from the North would have avoided this result.
Bernhard Thuersam, Chairman
North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission
www.ncwbts150.com
"The Official Website of the North Carolina WBTS Sesquicentennial"
“One evidence of the baleful effects of Radical Reconstruction is to be found in the increase in the Negro death rate. [Author] DeForest noted that “a large part of the colored was incapable of self-support and without natural guardians…But for the pity of former owners, themselves perhaps bankrupt…multitudes of aged, infirm and infantile blacks would have suffered greatly or perished outright.”
Dependable figures are available only for Charleston; but they are representative of the entire State and agree with many individual observations. So many Negroes, particularly children, died during Reconstruction, and venereal and other social diseases increased at such a rate, that some observers even predicted that the race would die out within a few generations.
For thirty-nine years after the war…the Negro death rate increased 69 percent to 43.33; the white rate dropped to 24.4. During the same periods, too, Negro deaths from tuberculosis increased nearly 400 percent. Many Southern friends of the race like [Wade] Hampton deeply regretted the senseless state of affairs that was bringing about this physical as well as social demoralization of a kindly people.”
(Wade Hampton and the Negro, Hampton M. Jarrell, USC Press, 1949, pp. 13-14)
Bernhard Thuersam, Chairman
North Carolina War Between the States Sesquicentennial Commission
www.ncwbts150.com
"The Official Website of the North Carolina WBTS Sesquicentennial"
“One evidence of the baleful effects of Radical Reconstruction is to be found in the increase in the Negro death rate. [Author] DeForest noted that “a large part of the colored was incapable of self-support and without natural guardians…But for the pity of former owners, themselves perhaps bankrupt…multitudes of aged, infirm and infantile blacks would have suffered greatly or perished outright.”
Dependable figures are available only for Charleston; but they are representative of the entire State and agree with many individual observations. So many Negroes, particularly children, died during Reconstruction, and venereal and other social diseases increased at such a rate, that some observers even predicted that the race would die out within a few generations.
For thirty-nine years after the war…the Negro death rate increased 69 percent to 43.33; the white rate dropped to 24.4. During the same periods, too, Negro deaths from tuberculosis increased nearly 400 percent. Many Southern friends of the race like [Wade] Hampton deeply regretted the senseless state of affairs that was bringing about this physical as well as social demoralization of a kindly people.”
(Wade Hampton and the Negro, Hampton M. Jarrell, USC Press, 1949, pp. 13-14)
Reconstruction’s Baleful Effects
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