Natchitoches spectator. [volume] (Natchitoches, La.) 1867-18??, 1867-12-05
The Negro and the Land.


BILE, discourses as follows:
That fantastic anachronism. The Anti
Slavery Standard, is working with great
zeal and effect to injure the Republican
party by stimulating the reaction
against it. In late issues it not only
proposes that black men should be
raised to the very highest Offices of the
nation, but insists that all the lands of
the South shall be made over to the
blacks as the rightful owners. The lat
ter extraordinary proposition is sustain
ed by the argument that to repair the
protracted wrong inflicted upon the ne
gro race, by holding them in state of
slavery, something more Is necessary
to the fruits of their labor SO long fraud
uiently withheld. No more convenient
and practicable foi IN of compensation
can be devised than that which shall
confer upon them the fee-simple of the
SOIL The plan, like most plans emanat-
ing from similar sources, presents the
incidental advantages of still further
degrading and impoverishing the white
men of the South, and of solidifying the
strength of the Republican party; but
of course justice is its OStensible object,
and a lofty beneyolence alone has sug
gested it. 1t would really seem as ii.
w idCdtitNs UuO du-
surd and extreme measures that were
formerly attributed to humanitarian ex-
tIemists by their opponents. for the sake
of political capital, are one after the
other actually adopted by the former
with an enthusiasm that almost has the
appearance of madness. If Mr.. Wen
dell Phillips were next week to make a
speech, or the Anti-Slavery Standard To
print a leading article, urging that every
black man in the South should have a
white female for a concu0ine and white
male to black his boots and comb his
wool, we should not now be i'm the least
surprised. Such proposition would
scarcely be more silly and DANCE GUS,
although it might be even more ridicu-
lousy impracticable, than those which
are actually advanced. Indeed, the
alarming character of the agrarian spo-
liatiUn scheme advocated by the Stan
dard consists n )t so much in the proba-
bility that it will be carried into effect as
that consequences may ensue from the
attempt that all the military force of the
United States will be unable TO prevent.
1t is q very sad and discouraging refiec
ton that after all the bloOdshed and mis-
cry through which the country has pass
ed, it should still lie in the power of
wrong headed zealots to ignite q confla-
:
they nor all the temperate and patriotic
men in the land will be able to ex-
tinguish. 1t is humiliating to perceive
that. with all our progress" and "civi-
lization," fanatics and demagogues ex-
ert an influence which is utterly denied
to statesmen.
The plan to confiscate the Southern
lands for the benefit of the blacks is
perhaps the most ingenious and effective
that could be devised to postpone re-
cancellation between the sections and to
fill the breasts of Southern whites with
inextinguishahie bitterness and hatred.
From this point of viCy it perhaps de-
serves commendation in the sense tn 1T
it fulfils the end for which it was design
ed. That its adoption would really
prove an advantage to the black race
can be maintained, we should think, by
no judicious observer who studies the
situation with an eve to probabilities,
and who is therefore not blinded by
partisan prediction. The chances for
peacefully carrying such measure into
effect wouId be so slender that they
might we'll be left altogether out of the
account OF course, such men as Mr..
Phillips aGd his party would maintain
that the plan would work well simply on
the ground that they held it right that
III uO St, a iluC vi NhiCt
requires no REPUTATION. But the justice
of the measure is as flimsy as its expe.
diency. If we are to go back a priori
to the rights of things, why not trace
out all the SaxOns in England (and
America) anil t-instate them in the pos
session of the soil despoiled from their
ancestors by the Normans2 Why not
seek out the aSOrigints, such as are
left of them, of our own country and re-
store them the lands stolen by our pre-
decessors from theirs2 If we are to
search for original titles and original re-
sponsibility we must remember that the
planters of Virginia, the first slave-hold-
ers, paid for the negroes which were
brought to them by the people who were
engaged in the slave trade. These lat
ter individuals undoubtedly kidnapped
many of the Africans from their native
country. They amassed fortunes enjoy
ed to this day by many of their descend
ants both in Old and New England, and
surely it would be no more than fair to
take these fortunes and their accumnla-
tiOns, the original price paid for the
blacks by the planters, and Herewith
reimburse the posterity of those blacks
for their enslavement before taking away
the lands from those whose forefiathers