The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1866-05-08
The Memphis Mnssncre.


upon the relations existing between the white
and colored races in the Rebel States. A
mere chance collision between two passing
vehicles such as occurs a thousand times
day in every great city-becomes the occasion
of disturbance which soon assumes the form
of terrible riot, whose atrocities have not
been paralleled since the New York riots Of
1863. The negroes seem to have made some
thing of stand at first, but were sOon over
powered by numbers, and from that time on
the iDfuriated passions Of the mob were sated
with the widest excesses of ou trage and
murder. Unoflending negroes in other parts
of the city, and who knew nothing of the
riot, were set upon and cruelty beaten and
murdered. Even some who mad been ar
rested were pounded TO death while in Gus
tody. At night a scene Of horror ensued.
Eight school-houses and churches, and thirty.
five dwellings occupied by the negroes, were
burned, and negro woman was roasted
dliUe! How much further this work of arson
and murder would have proceeded on subse-
quent days, had not General SToNEMAN-at
very late hour, as it seems to us-interered
does not appear, except that from the prepa-
rations being made for raising an armed force
of citizens, and which was suppressed by
General SToNEMAN, a more general on
slaught upon the negroes was probably in
tended.
Of course, no comments can heighten the
horror which the bare recital of such flendish
deeds arouses in every right-feeling bosom.
But it is in a wider point of view that this
Memphis massacre may well awake the serious
thought Of every intelligent patriot. This
mob, with its muTderous atrocities, is but a
symptom unhappily, not a solitary symptom
of state of feeling which more or less per-
vades the entire South. That feeling is one
of intense and most bitter hatred of the black
man because he is free, OF determined hos
tility to every movement for his education
and Christianization, and, in many quarters,
oi a settled purpose for his determination.
The negro is hated now at the South, not
merely on account of the vulgar prejudice of
color, but because he is free, and has been
made so by the triumphant arms of the Gov
eminent. He is a perpetual reminder, a
living monument, of the overthrow of the
Rebel Confederacy, and the boasted prin ciple
upon which it was founded. Not onlv this,
but he himself assisted in the work. Rebel
hatred, therefore, wreaks itself with special
vengeance upon the black soldier whose loyal
arms upbore the flag of the Union.
The late Rebels are still further eXasperated
by the efforts which the blacks are making for
education and selfimprovement. 1t is so
CALLING to see the "niggers" going to school
and learning 10 read, especially to that multi
tudinous class OF "poor white trash" who are
themselves ignorant and degraded to the last
degree, and the ready-made material of mobs
for the more intelligent leaders to push for
ward into such murdeIous deeds of violence
as those at Memphis. Hence, the first rush OF
these mobs is for the school-houses and
churches. Destroy them, and there is some
hope Of excepting the niger in his place."
Every day almost brings us accounts from the
South of the incendiary destruction of the
school-houses and churches of the cOlored
people. Missionaries to heather lands have,
on some occasions, had their school-houses
and churches burned by savages, but no such
wholesale and persistent destruction as is now
going on in the Rebel States was ever wit
messed in the most benighted of pagan regions.
The determination of the blacks, conse-
quent upon a war Of races, has been favorte
prediction of leading Rebels ever since the
policy of emancipation was inaugurated by
the Government. They are now laboring
to make good their prediction. If they shall
fail of success, it will not be from any lack
of efforts to that end. Every opportunity is
sought to provoke collision with the blacks
especially with those who have been Union
soldiers, and every means is used to foster Bit
terness between the races.
1t is well that the nation should look these
things in the face. The negro is naturally
peaceful, and disinclined to contest with the
whites; but it must be remembered that over
large districts of the South the blacks are
the most numerous class of the population.
They are now free, and daily rising in intelli-
gence. Thousands of disbanded colored SOL
diers are scattered through their midst. The
memory of past wrongs, Of unaVenged afro
cities, of long years of oppression, is still
slumbering in their bosoms The terrible
history Of Saint Domingo warns us to beware
ofthese efforts to arouse a war Of the races.
The nation, as amatter of selfprotection, must
not allow this state OF things to become much
worse. The interests OF humanity, no less
than those of Justice, demand prompt inter
terence on the part of the Government.