The Vermont transcript. [volume] (St. Albans, Vt.) 1864-1870, 1866-09-28

$3.50 to $500 per day, or $4,000 O
month; eight to ten cents day is
amply sufficient for each member Of a
common sized family for rent, fuel and
food; the County has appropriated
several thousand dollars for their as
sistaucc, and yet many Of them will
starye before Spring, unless indiyidu-
ais aid them. And yet SO industri-
Gus and intelligent are the blacks
here, that families can send their
washings to Parkersburg, 2S) miles, by
express, and save fifty cents ON n dozen.
They will work for lower wages for
an old master, or one of the aristocra-
cy than FOR a poor white.
There is neither manifest any strong
desire for knowledge for its own sake,
or for the suffrage only to make them
good as the whites. This may be a
strong, but is certainly not high mo-
tive.
l have never met negro but once,
who, when asked, would you fight for
ihe ballot, did not reply no sir, new
en- As to the feeling among Union
men here, Gov. Bowman expressed it
ruiywhen he said that for the Repub-
lican party to declare for negro SUI
frage, was TO drive every Union man
in this State away from it.
From these things l conclude that
neither by his own efforts, nor that of
Union men here, will the negro OBJ
tain the suffrage. fit comes it must
be forced upon the South Is this
desirable?
believe that it would be q calamity
TO the nation, and dire calamity to
the black men
My friend was a Know-nothing, r
remember with what terror he used
to recount the terrible tales that came
from east, west aud South, Of foreign
ers amiug drilling, turning churches
and even grayeyards into arsenels &c
&c, and can it be that if Vermont was
placed now where South Carolina is,
with six hundred thousand people, so
ignorant that not one in two hundred
could read, write, or tell the time of
day. that he would be 50 anxious to
give them the suffrage, and place the
intelligent in their power?
Are the radicals, crying for negro
suffrage expecting their votes, if SO,
they are committing the great polt-
cal error Of their lives.
The blacks Will not vote permanent
~ with any class North They will
vote with their employers, and those
among them who can make the most
display Any one who has studied
the nature Of the negro, will under
stand this.
On the whole face of the earth, but
one people has been found intelli.
gent enough to vote aud remain free;
many could fight for freedom, but this
is another thing, and yet some would
take six millions, the least intelligent
of any above the savage state, and OK
pect they would vote wisely; perhaps
some better Instinct, some wiser i'm
pulse has been given to this people
than to any other Heaven grant it
may prove so if the priceless jewel Of
our liberty must be entrusted to such
hands.
Impartial suffrage declared, the old
party issues are dead; party lines if
not names are changed; questions of
commerce, Industrial economy, or
foreign policy will be called up to dis
tract the country.
On which side will the negro then
be found ? Is it the question of
Tariff? Not one in five hundred can
tell the difference between n tariff and
a wheelbarrow, and yet through their
wages they will learn their interests
and be found against New England.
Beyond this, Philips himself could not
predict
Is it the question of Revenue Not
one in five hundred can tell a 500,
$40 from the small bill Of a cheap
circus.
Is it the question Of Foreign policy?
Not one in five hundred can tell
whether Vermont lies in Turkey or
Turkey in Vermont; which is the
largest town France or England;
whether Napoleon is the name of
State or steamboat; Whether the
Promised Land and Ireland both lie
in Canada, or only one of them, or
what part of Africa Europe lies in.
Can my friend guess how they