Journal of freedom. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1865-186?, 1865-10-07

from jain stuart Mtu- MS .iews Of
Reconsrr"ctt' ana Negro Suffra sc
The following letter from John Stuart
Mill, addressed to a gentleman in Ohio,
appears in the Cincinnati Commercial
BLAcKHEArM PARK, KNIT,
September |, 1865.
DEAR StR: I am sincerely obliged to
you for giving IRE an opportunity of read
ing the letter of Gen. Cox, and your ex-
ccllcnt paper in reply.
You'ask me for an opinion. / should
hesitate very long before obtruding upon
any American, and still more upon the
American public, any mere opiniNn of
mine respecting their internal concerns.
But it is the concern of mankind, almost
as much as OF the Unitel States, that
the conques's achieved by your great and
arduous struggle should not be, in the
very hour of victory, carelessly flung
away and the opinion which you do me
the honor to ask, is one which I share
with so many Of the noblest and wisest
Americans, that,I need have the less
scruple in expressing it.
1t is certainly some gain to the pegroes
and toithe principle oftreed m, that they
have BEEN made ever nominally free. i
do not pretend that it is nothing that
they can nc longer legally be bought and
so d But this is about the amount of
all they will have gained, if the rover Of
legislation over them is handed over once
more to their old masters. and to the
mean whites by whom they are despised
as much, and probably more, than even
by their masters, and who have been
Fl hting four years to retain them en-.
shaved. II it were not for your State in
stitutions, the case would not be so press
ing for those who have made them free
could keep them 20. But once. the war
power laid down, and the regular course
of State government restored, what is to
prevent q State Legislature, chosen by
their enemies, from making laws under
which, unless they resist by force, they
will have as little the control of their
own actions, as little protection for life,
honor and property, will, in short, be,
except in II few of the outward incidents
Of slavery, almost as much slaves as be-
fore ? To bring this about it would not
wen be necessary to enact new laws. 1t
would suffice to nave the cid ones unre-
pealed, by which the testimony OF a negro
cannot be received against a white. Nay,
even were these laws abrngated, nothing
more would he needed then partially
and prejudice In the white courts of JUS
tice. And would it be consistent with
ordinary human nature that such par.
TALLY anil prejudice should not exist ?
All this is so evident; that even the cam
didate, to whose letter yOu 80 ably re-
Tiled, is quite aware of it, and Gun sug-
geSt no means of averting the evil, ex-
ceIt what | agree with you i'll regarding
as the chimcrical project of affecting Il
local separation between the two races,
excluding the negroes from the juriSdic-
ti6n of the States, and giving them a ter
r~itofial government apart. 1t is not t"
he believed that the President or Cor
greSs will entertain such a scheme at
this seriously. Ii, then. they allow the
Southern Sta,es to reorSanize themselves
and resume all their constitutional rights
without negro suffrage, what is to be-
. done? To abandon the negroes to the
tender mercies of those from whom, at SO
terrible a cost, you have SD lately rescued
them? No party or set Of men in the
free States are SO shameless as to propose
this combined turpitude and imbecility.
But the freedom of the negroes and the
SeII-2OVtIuuucub vi LuC SOuLICt -
as at present constituted, cannot co-exist;
and fit is determined that, come what
will, the former shall be o reality, it
must be intended that the latter should
be u mere ~pretence. A censorship will
have to be exercised over all the acts,
both legislative and administrative, OF
the State governments; the federal au-
thorities will, by military coercion, pre-
vent or set aside all proceedings calcn-
lated to interfere with that equality OF
civil rights to which they are bound by
every consideration, both of duty and of
interest, to secure to the freed race. And
this military dictatorship will have to
be continued for a great length of time ;
for it is speaking within bounds to say
that two generations must elapse before
the habits and feelings ~engendered by
slavery give place to new ones-before
ne stain which the position of slave mas
Ter burns into the very souls Of the privi-1
legged population can be expected to fade
out.
This is the state of things which the
policy now apparently acted on by the
federal government leads to; but have
too high an opinion of the intentions and
feelings of the President, and the practl-
cal good sense and determination OF the
American people, to believe that such a
,,ol;on ,,;n bo norsavorad In. It WOuld