Holmes County farmer. [volume] (Millersburg, Ohio) 1857-1926, 1865-06-15
More Years OF Agi-
tation.

the agency OF party politics. This is
pretty decided admission 10y high authority
that the negro question has not been put nj
rest by the war. Direct Intervention, or
/ Executive coercion in favor of colored suf-
irsge is hardly to be expected at the hands
ottte. present Chief Magistrate. The negro
machinery seems to have taken to running
backward Of Us own accord The loyal Leg
| lslature Of Tennessee has distinctly recog.
nized the difference between black and
white, by the passage Of several disquolify-
/ ing acts and provisions. The Legislature
Of Virginia, elected by loyal men, Is mbued
with anti progressive notions which promise
less than nothing in favor Of the coored
friend and brother. Every where that the
work OF reconstruction is going on, the aus
/ pices are decidedly ant.African. Nothing
is more certain than that, in the colorcd as
pect. the work Of National regeneration is
very far from being complete and there
are not few who insist that it is not even
begun.
Twenty FIVE more years of agitation
twenty-five more years Of negro politics
twenty-five more years in which theories Of
the rights and needs of the colored men of
the South will obscure and dominate every
consideration Of public and general interest;
twenty-five more years in which political
parties will revolye around the negro ques-
ton. and the merits of public measures,
and Of public men, will be measured by tho
bSari M thss. will haven npnn the claim set mn
in favor Of the admission Of persons Of
African to an equality in civil right with
persons ofEuropean ancestry. And now is
this agitation to be carried on? In two
ways: by ierocious and bigoted propaganda
ism, in the pulpit and lecture hall, and
through the press, and by the setting loose
Of demagogues to bargain and plot by every
imaginable style Of party coalition and com
bination, The priest will certify to the
-acredness Of the design, and promise the
especial aid Of the Almighty for IFS accom-
plishment; the political shys'er will demon
strate its legality, and its conformity with
the spirit Of our institutions: and the party
clmp-folowers will be ready to embark in
any arrangement Of forces, however mimi
cal to the general welfare, to carry it into
effect.
The thing to be done, will be to put down
opposition in the North, as preliminary to
putting it down in the South. No general
advance can be made upon the latter until
the former is brought into a state Of unity.
How this unity is to be produced, Is, as yet,
matter Of deiberation-not in respect to-
the principle, but in respect to the policy
and mode Of proceeding. The principle Of
the right OF the majority to coerce the mi
nority is established. Our system Of pollt-
ical ideas no longer owns free will as its
/ basis, but begins and ends in coercion. The
country belongs to the Government the peo-
pie to the Administration, and the minority
to the majority The plan for political op-
erations is, divide and conquer. Opposition
to the Negro Fifth Monarchy in the North
! has been severed, by the war. from opposl
I ton in the South, and, having put down
the one, the next thing in order will be to
| put down the other; and this is to be the
work Of twenty-five years more OF agitation.
And what then? What will be the con-
dition Of the country when the twenty-five
years are accomplished what the state Of
the white people. what Of the black Up
on the best Of philanthropic authority We are
assured that forty years Of most unwholsome
and distractlng agltatlOns, and tour years OF
war, have, a. yet, gained nothing tor the
negro. Five thousand million Of dollars in
direct expenditure, ten thousand mlIllonsln
damage, dllapidation and incidental loss, two
million of lives, a million Of crinples, Gov
ernment unbalanced, Constitution tro1den
down, and every principle of Administra-
ton however venerable for its age or re
vered for its justice. displaced and distorted,
industrial system broken up, society filed
with the seeds of disorder, and whole land
poisoned with hatreds and enmitieS, all for
the black man, and yet nothing accomplish
ed What a lesson for agitators
! And yet this is not the whole story, nor
half Of il: it is not thousandth part Of it.
For all this, the condition Of the negro is
worse-infnitely, incomparably worse. The
| blood Of the negro rushe> in deep andrapid
tide along the track Of the philanthropiSt
/ the dark forest where terociousA Abolitionism
/ harbors, is horrid with the shrieks Of his
victims. The history Of Anti-slavery bencv-
olence is, from beginning to end. history
of torture and unmerited suffering: record
Of cruelty such as that Of the worst Of times
and the most barbarous Of peoples can hard.
! ly parallel. The triumph of Abolitionism
| in America consists in Transforming four
millions of well-ted and happy laborers. into
three millions Of paupers-Esupers with no
home, no country, no recognition: the other
million having gone starving freezing, rot
ting, 10 their graves. And yet, in propor-
ton as these sad trophies are multiplied,
philanthropy grows more and more mex
orable. In spite Of the self-evidence of the
fact that its steps are marked with blood.
and harbngered by shrieks-in spite of the
| selt-evidence of the fact that lust in propor-
! ton as each Of its plans has been carried into
effect the negro has been made more help
/ less and miserable philanthropy still insists
upon going forward and completing it's
dreadful mission, 1t dares not look back
upon the heaps ofdead which Strow the path
it has travelled but with an additional Cain
mark upon its soul for every murder, and
new hatred for every pang which has as
q sailed its conscience with enmity against
God for refusing indorsementto 70 its theories,
and malice against humanity for failing to
be tractable to its plass with new despe
ration for every impeachment, and fresh
spite for every failure, it rushes on, as if to
drown the intolerable memory Of the past
in some untried combination of horrors in
the future.
From this point, in the history Of the
country, We have u right TO look back to the
time when, in a spirit Of faithfulness that
was little appreciated, we ventured TO in
quire When slavery is abolished, what is
/ to become of the negro? What will be the
/ fate Of the parasite when the bond is broken
which subsists between him and his protec-
| tor? We have not forgotten the lordy style
! in which We were informed that it was not
our business to ask such questions-thatthis
was matter which, when the proper time
should arrive, the party in power was fully
competent 10 manage; nor the sneering
tone in which We were given 10 understand
that, though this might he a vast problem
for our weak powers, there were those who