The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-04-05


cannot but be interested in observing how
wonderfully all the predictions of the pro-
slavery conservatives have been falsihed.
The prophets of despotism have proved as
lying as those of Baal of old.
We can well remember, in the early days oil
the anti-slavery movement, when Garrison
raised the banner of Immediate and uncond-
tional emancipation, how the universal reply OF
the conservatives was, that such a measure
would be followed by general massacre Oh
the whites by the blacks. That the slaves, II
suddenly liberated, would "cut the throats"
of their masters, was universally assumed to
be indisputable. 1t was in vain that the
example of immediate emancipation in the
British West India Islands was pointed to,
where the chains were struck from 100000
human beings in one day. without even so
much as a single case of assault and battery
to mar the event. Conservatism was wilfully
blind, and could not see.
This false idea of the tremendous danger
of immediate and unconditional emancipation,
haunted and possessed the public mind down
to the promulgation of the Emancipation Pro-
great and good man shrank from the expert
ment; and he exhausted every effort to induce
the States themselves to enter upon gradual
emancipation before he could be brought to
take the final step. And even then he did it
with trembling hesitancy and with an appa-
rent dOubtfulness of how the act would be re-
garded by mankind, which, in the clearer light
o1r ba1 o1,
inexplicable.
Well, the day of emancipation came, sud
den, immediate, and unconditional, startling
as "firebell in the night" Where, now were
the long-predicted excesses-the violence and
outrage, the murder and blood Fictions of
the imagination all. Although the country
was at the time shaken by the convulsions of
war, and the opportunities and inducements
to disorder were great, yet the conduct of the
freedmen was, and has been ever SINCE so far
as the commission of wrong upon the whites
is concerned, such as to eXtort the unwilling
need of praise from their very enemies. The
truth is, there never had been time in our
country when the immediate and uncon-
ditional abolition of slavery would not have
been feasible wise, and bencfcent. The oppo-
site assertion was an invention of the enemy,
without foundation either in philosophy or
fact.
Another of these pro-slavery predictions
was that emancipation would be followed by
a general influx of the freedmen into the
Northern States. The North was to be over
run by these dusky laborers, who were to
flock into the land like locusts for multitude,
driving the white laborer from his work by
their unhealthy competition, and consigning
him to enforced idleness and want. This is a
bugbear with which Jack Rogers and his ilk
have hardly yet got through soaring New
Jersey Copperheads. But this, like the
slaves cutting their masters throats out of
gratitude for being set free, has proved itself
a false prediction. The black man is a native
ola warm climate, and left free to seek the
home Of his choice, naturally tends towards the
tropics. Emancipation has been followed by
no perceptible influx of former slaves from the
South.
Another tdUorite assumption of our pro-
slavery writers and speakers was, that in a
state of freedom the blacks tcould not aoork
The slave lash, or the fear of it, was the
only thing that could get fair days work
out of negro. The whole fabric of Southern
industry was supposed to rest necessarily ON
the slave. This, too, has been proved false.
1t is found that WageS, labor's universal stimu-
liant the world over, are just as effective with
black men as with white men. And althouob
the reorganization of Southern industry on
the basis of free labor has been attended
with many difficulties and drawbacks, vet the
least of them has been the disinclination of
the blacks to work. Pay them promptlq and
they will work as we'll as any other class of
people.
But perhaps the most emphatic and dolo-
rous vaticinations of our fanatcal conserya-
tives have been uttered in connection with the
subject of negro suffrage The bare proposal
of such thing has been sufficient to send a
spasm of horror through their veins A '',Oal
Of raoes' has been held up as the inevitable
result of applying the fundamental principl,
of republican government to Southern society
We believe President Johnson has not got thi
alarming notion out of his head yet. But a
we now cast our eyes over the South, what d
we behold2 The mere prospect of negro sui
frage has proved to be the great poltica
anodyne of the day. Instead of a war of races
it has brought about ffaternization of races
The 'chivalry" have ceased numbering ne
groes, and burning down their school-house