The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-10-31
Southern Politics from the Negro stand
point,

Southern Politics from the Negro stand
point,
From the ~ Y. World
The Southern elections, particularly that of
Virginia, which was more warmly contested
than the others, demonstrate that there is
already a complete separation of the two
races; and the acrimonious bitterness that
has been developed renders it probable that
this alienation is irreconcilable. 1t will
most undoubtedly be permanent il the recon-
struction experiment proceeds much farther
on its present basis. There was never per-
haps in the history of the world a great
political and social crisis which found the
men in power so unequal to the exigency.
In country cOnvulsed and rent by great
civil war, in which a semi-barbarous pOpula-
ton were suddenly released from servitude,
there were two great dangers to be guarded
against at its close, and consequently two
great objects of national policy which ought
to have been regarded paramount. One
of these objects was the early restoration
of national harmony lest the animosities of
the war should become chronic; and the other
the establishment of kindly relations between
the two races, thus preserving them from an
tagonism and their sections from anarchy.
Neither the desirability of these ends nor the
reality of the dangers can very we'll be dis
puted. Looking at the subject from the very
lowest point of view, it was inexpedient for
the country to sustain the burdens of war in
time of peace; but large armies cannot
safely be dispensed with so long as
Southern hostility is not converted into
friendship, nor if the two races in the South
need to be restrained from mutual slaughter.
Now it is matter of experience, which the
Southern elections put beyond denial that
in both respects, the danger has been aggra-
waited by the Republican party. AS a direct
nf
South is less reconciled to the North and the
negroes infinitely more jealous of the whites
than at the close of the war. The Southern
whites have been provoked to sulky stubborn
ness, and the negroes stirred up to a pitch of
seditious insOlence which would never be tole-
rated in the North, and is borne by the South
only because the South is under the heel of
a military despotism. If we could hope that
this unfortunate state of Southern feeling was
but temporary stage in the progress towards
solid and durable tranquility, it might per-
haps be borne. But nothing is more GER
tain than that, if the Republican policy
Is persisted in matters will grow worse and
worse. 1t is the necessary consequence of
the reconstruction scheme to widen the
breach between the two races, and to accele-
rate the relapse of the Southern whites into
the bitterness of the old alienation. This will
follow from the operation of human nature in
| the circumstances of the parties. If you put
| a beggar on horseback, he will pretty surely,
| according to the prOVerb, ride to the devil. If
| you suddenly elevate an inferior race from
| abject servitude to domineering authority
| they would under any circumstances abuse
| their power; much more when they are stimu-
lated and set on by an arrogant political party
| acting at distance and seeking to profit by
their hostility to the subjugated whites. That
the existing feuds will be constantly strength
ened and intensified must be evident to every
considerate man who will attend to the negro
| points of view.
That the negroes can shape matters as they
please, follows from the fact that they are an
overwhelming majority of the party which
| VIII control the State Governments. What
they Will please to do can easily be predicted
Irom the views they take of their rights. The
whole property of the South they regard as
equitably theirs; and they can support the
claim by arguments specious enough to con-
vince themselves. The reasoning is this:-
Property is the creation of labor, and belongs
OF right to those who produce it. The
negroes, as slaves, toiled without compensa-
tion to create the property which existed in
the South at the beginning of the late war. II
any part OF 1t Justly belonged to the white race
they squandered more than their share upon
their armies, and the negroes may fairly claim
the residue as the accumulated wages of
unoompensated toll. This view springs up 80
naturally and will diffuse itself so easily in