Daily union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1865-1866, 1865-12-28
Ernm the Richmond Times

From the Richmond Times
WHILE the Radicals in Congress are de-
vising means to thwart the President, and to
give the negroes in the South equal, if not
superior rights to the white man, the English,
having tried in their West Indian colonies
government of blacks, and found it fail
ure, have at once with their usual practical
good sense, proposed to abolish it. Taught
by the recent terrible scenes that the negro
is incapable of self-government, bill has
been introduced in the Jamaica House of
Assembly, composed of whites, muiattoes
and negroes, to abolish the House of Assem-
bly, and Legislative Council, and providing
for Legislative Chamber, to be composed
solely of members of the Crowns Council
This bill takes away from the Jamaica ne
gro the right Of suffrage, which has proven
a curse to him and the Island, and places
the government in the hands of counsellors,
appointed by the British Ministry. After
thirty years experience, they have found
out that negro suffrage will not do, and that,
instead of elevating the black, he has sunk
back into barbarism, horribly illustrated
by those brutal atrocities perpetrated on the
whites in that unfortunate island.
In the same House of Assembly another
bill has been introduced to provide against
unauthorized drilling" This act might well
be considered by our own legislature and
similar one, perhaps, enacted. For it is no.
tOrious that the negroes in this city, or at
least portion of them, have been secretly
drilling and arming for some time past.
With what object, and by whom, we will
not here undertake to say. But there is no
enemy for MS to meet on our soil at present,
and if there was, the United States forces
are generally supposed to be equal to the
task of expelling him. With the exception
of police or mounted patrol in one or two
of the counties, there are no citizens of the
State under arms; and yet here, in these
piping times of peace, when, if there is any
war going on we cannot see it, the negro
population are arming and drilling. Pro-
badly they design expelling Macmillan
from Mexico. We hope so, for the negroes
make first rate soldiers, and they are the
very men to do it. At all events, there
ought to be law preventing such "unau-
thorized drilling" lest some of these enthu-
siastic military men get hurt.
Still another act in the Jamaica Assembly
catches our eye. 1t is an act TO preserve
We do not know that this is needed here in
' IT illds luC NOlSlllp VI tlC Almighty DN
our negroes has not yet degenerated into a
mockery and shame. But there are States
where it might be enacted to great advan-
tage, and where the primitive purity
of the Christian religion, as taught in the
on the Mount, has been far departed
from by some of their teachers and preachers |
We can imagine no more scandalous use"
10 which the house of God could be put |
than to introduce into its consecrated |
pulpit one Of those clerical harlequins with !
his stage tricks TO make his audience laugh |
and get pufis in the newspapers, and who
are hebdominally seen in some of the |
churches in New York and Boston. The |
stereotype political preacher, who gives his |
audience exactly what they want on a Sum
lay, when their religion prevents them from
-eading the secular newspapers is too well and |
known for use to portray him. |
)f course Cheever and his brethren would |
dislike exceedingly any legislative enact
ncnt Of this kind, and would bitterly oppose
t. No doubt Theodore Parker's bones would
attic in his grave. We commend it, how
,yer, TO the New York and Massachusetts
legislatures