The Potter journal. [volume] (Coudersport, Pa.) 1857-1872, 1866-08-07

and outcast for another generation, and the
enemies of the government will wrest it
from those who saved it.
To permit the whites TO disfranchise the
negroes is to permit those who have beer
our enemies to ostraciSe our friends. The
negroes are the only persons in those States
who have not been in arms against us.
They have always and everywhere been
friendly and not hostile to us. They alone
have deep interest in the continued su-
premacy of the United States, for their
freedom depends on it. On them alone
can we depend to suppress new insurrec-
ton. They alone will be included TO vote
for the friends of the government in all the
Southern States. They alone have shell
tered, fed and pioneered our starved and
hunted bretheren through the swamps and
woods of the South, in their flight from
those who now aspire to rule them.
The shame and folly of deserting the
negroes are equalled by the wisdom of
recognizing and protecting their power.
They will form a clear and controlling
majority against the united white vote in
South Carolina, Mississippi and Louisiana
With a very small accession from the
loyal whites, they will form majority in
Alabama, Georgia and Virginia.
Unalded III all those States, they will be
a majority in many congressional and leg
islatiye districts, and that alone suffiees to
break the terrible and menacing unity of
the Southern vote in Congress.
If organized and led by men having
their confidence, the negroes will prove as
powerful and loyal at the polls as they have
already, in the face Of equal clamor and
equal prejudice, proved themselves under
such leaders on the fed of battle.
10 those who say they are unfit for the
franchise, | reply they are more fit than
secessionists. ..--...-.
If they be ignorant they are not more SO
than large masses of the white voters of
the South, or the rabble which is tumbled
on the wharves Of New York and runs
straight to the polls
However ignorant, they know enough to
be on the side of the government, and the
intelligence of the master has not yettaught
them that wisdom.
They may be influenced by the master,
but the master must touch his hat TO them
at least, and it will be an open question
whether they vote with the master any
more than they fought on his side 1t is
certain the Northern immigrant will find
the negro q safe ally, and arguments on his
lips will lose no weight by their Yankee
origin.
1t is said not to be safe for the master
to visit bis plantations in Georgia; when
he does he will hardly carry much influence
politically.
Irepeat that in this problem are involved
the issues of life and death.
If the negro population be recognized as
an integral portion Of the people Of the
States which rebelled, and governments be
organized, on the basis of universal suffrage
and equality before the law, Congress
ought to recognize them, and the problem
is solved forever. ...
If governments be allowed by the Pres
ldent to be organized on the basis of the
exclusion of the mass of the negro popula-
tion, then Congress ought to refuse to re-
cognize them; but | fear it will not refuse
Ii the question be submitted to the vote
of any portion of the white population, the
negroes will be excluded from power.
The result entails on US barren agita-
ton instead of a benefcent settlement. 1t
carries with it division of the friends of
the government and threatens to elevate
its enemies to power.
For premature agitators, l have small
sympathy. They are cocks which crow at
midnight; they do not herald the dawn,
but merely disturb natural rest by untimey
clamor.
But this is a question of political dy-
namics, which presses now for solution, and
on it depends the chief fruits of the war.
Tiff be not rightly solved nor, it will
find no solution for generation, and pos
sibly none then without renewed civil com
motion. Over the result | have no power.
[ can only hope and fear.
Your obedient servant,
H. WINTER DAVIS.