Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1867-10-14
Tho Southern Curse.

repulsive) has been said in the journals
Of the North concerning the one supreme
social danger which arose in the South.
ern States at the close Of the war, and
which the action of the reconstruction
laws has since increased. .-......
II is not alone because the black pop.
ulation of the South has been elevated
from slavery into nominal manhood
recognized by the leaders Of reoonstruc-
ton and the Radical party as being more
eminent than the manhood Of the late
rebellious whites, that the latter are
stung deeply, and complain. There is
something nearer to the hearts of peo-
pie than civil rights and political posi-
ton, even when these are usurped by a
race beneath them in intelligence, ex'
perienee and manners. The common
safety of their homes; the security from
harm or insult of those whom they most
love and respect-those are the first con.
siderations of civilized and honorable
men. When these are jeopardized, the
condition Of any community is bad in.
deed.
The terror Of the Southern whites is
the immortality of the emancipated
slaves. In order that this may be the
more distinctly understood, our readers
are invited to examine carefully the
letters from our correspondents in Geor.
gia and elsewhere, and the list Of negro
outrages culled in single day from our
Southern exchanges, which were printed
Saturday morning. 1t is to be observed
that in these, as in almost all the &C
counts of such doings which appear in
Southern newspapers, mere naked facts
are set down, few comments, indignant
or otherwise, appearing Such reti-
cenee is perfectly explicable. A pru-
dent apprehension of the consequences
of arousing too hot and widespread
public resentment restrains the pen OF
every thoughtful Southern journalist,
No fear of all the United States soldiery
in all the Southern military departments,
nor a thought Of any future conse-
ouences to themselves alone, would
perhaps have kept the white male popu-
lation of the South from precipitating a
war of races founded upon constantly
recurring enormites like these. Military
jurisdiction has been needed there, if at
all, to repress, instead of encouraging
as it has, the disposition only of the
blacks. The whites have more than
sufficient motive for restraining their
passions within bounds.
The negro race has ever been noted
for its debaucheries when it has had OPP
portunities of license. San Domingo
and the Isthmus of Panama were the
scenes of two Of the most fearfuul mani
festations of the hellish passions of q
tropical peasantry, in modern times. Is
it any wonder that the inhabitants of the
Southern States dread to incur the risk OF
what would be so much worse than the
mere massacre Of their wives and chill
dren ? A battle with negroes would be
a battle with fends. The latter, who,
when domesticated on plantations before
the war with their families, we're rarely
impelled to commit violence even in
the households Of those of their own
color, have been forced, in thousands OF
instances, to an irksome confluence
| by inability to support 9 family,
and by the unwllingness of their
new employers to hire married men.
Hence, and encouraged in the attitude
which they are permitted to assume to-
ward the poor white trash, many oi
them have INDUCED and are persisting
in the outrages recited. Even the wo-
men, who were never too strictly chaste,
have become more grossly unchaste than
ever. A bold, brazen concublnage has
increased in the towns as well as in the
cou ntry, with its inevitable consequences
of disease and suffering. And the same
horrible device which in New England is
employed by eminent physicians to lessen
the domestic cares of fashionable women,
would seem to have been simultaneously
employed to reduce their burdens by the
swarthy female wards in Alabama and
Georgia of the Radical missionaries from
the New England States.
Such condition Of society can be
likened to nothing else than a volcano.
1t is daily growing worse, and will grow
worse so long as the cold, cruel, selfish
Radical policy of crushing the Southern
whites below the respect of their igno-
rant recent slaves for the double purpose
of destroying the influence of the former
over the latter aud manipulating the lat
ter into political partisaus, is pursued.
The time was when q negro, even il he
conceived deed so vile as the nameless
ones that are rife in the South to-day,
knew that it would be certain death TO
attempt it, aad refrained The time
must come, too, when, if the hideous
dread upon which the forbearance of
Southern citizens is founded becomes
realized in a much greater than the
present ratio, forbearance will cease to
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