Rhetorical Analysis Of Henry Grady's 'The New South'

As the Civil War came to an end, the South experienced an era of changes. One of the most popular speeches, explaining how the post-war South had grown out of its old customs and made progress, was Henry Grady’s The New South. This document is an important historical speech when comparing examinations of how life was for Southerners in the years following the Reconstruction and the Compromise of 1877. Although this speech is very motivational, it differs from the reality of how the South was managing during this time period. Grady’s vision seemed almost too good to be true when covering the stance of the economy, the termination of slavery, and the attitudes of Confederate soldiers after the war. Grady’s view on the Old South was that
it relied too much on agriculture, which he said would not be enough to maintain stability or promote economic growth. His vision of the New South mapped out a region with a diversified industry. According to the speech, Confederate soldiers were coming home with ambition to grow crop, and not just cotton or tobacco, but a range of plants. He also created an image of a prospering economy where everyone was working together, versus the habits of the Old South where landowners controlled farmers. The speech makes the New South sound very similar to the way life had been going for those in the North economically, mostly to make it seem as though the two areas were unifying in ideals. Just as Grady speaks of a unified economy uprising in the New South, he also mentions that the Negro man is now an equal part of the Southern community.
His words tell the audience that African Americans are no longer slaves due to laws protecting them from discrimination, are allowed to attend school along with white folk, and are thriving workers. This perspective of racial harmony does not show the truth about the way Negroes were treated after the War. Although there was political tension towards discrimination coming from the redeemers, those who tried to reestablish the old ways of the South, there were more pressing consequences for Negroes who fell under the pitfall of sharecropping. The history textbook, America: A Narrative History, shows that since slavery was not allowed, Southerners decided to give small shares of their land to Negroes, who would then be known as sharecroppers that paid their debt off in manual labor growing cash crops for their
landowners. In the speech, not only do common southern-folk appear to be sympathetic, but Confederate soldiers do as well.
It almost seems as though the Confederates were the victims, left with nothing but a thousand dead men and completely demolished hometowns. Building upon their “heroicness”, Grady speaks of how they got passed their hardships and came home inspired to start life over, with open and accepting arms to all. He does not seem apologetic at all of the way the South had acted during the war, giving the impression that they fought only to promote positive changes while still being the good guys in the end. All this only makes the South seem like it’s bad at handling loss. Not only do they refuse to admit that the war was based around the topic of slavery, but they are now trying to give themselves credit for being valiant people, while in reality they were still acting on their old viscous
ways. Grady’s speech was designed to give the impression that the South had reconstructed itself into a diverse, flourishing community. The image he created of the economic boom, complete abolishment of slavery, and contentment of Confederate soldiers after the war was very inspiring and comforting to believe. Grady gave Southerners a good name by defending their post-war lifestyle changes, but the fact of the matter was that the New South hadn’t improved much, if anything, it may have gotten worse in some aspects. Any speech can tell us about what supposedly changed after the war, but facts show that Grady’s speech was a severe distortion of the truth. In history, one must take into account not only written documents, but also facts from all perspectives in order to analyze and draw conclusions towards revealing what really occurred.