Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1867-02-22
From the Charleston Mercury, Feb. IA.
In, South en- roIfna Re-.

States, in behalf of "the colored citizens
of the State of South Carolina" pravinp
that the present State Government should
"be changed to Territorial Government"
of such form, that in the reorganization of
civil authority in the State preparatory to
its representation in Congress, "every man
accounted citizen of the United States,
shall be authorized to have an equal voice"
The petition Is obviously got up by North
ern Radicals, and is secretly circulated for
signatures by Northern negroes It is q
part OF the party tactics, and illustrates
the means used to get up facts and ouin-
IONS Tor party purposes. We ventiate II
for the benefit OF our people, and to mt
them on their guard against the macbina.
tons of Northern emissaries.
l. The petition, of course, teens with
falsehood from beginning to end. II he.
gins with recital of the condition of the
negroes in South Carolina. 1t says : "Tbe
Civil Rights bill fails, redress fails, and the
Civil Courts fail to do them justice These
courts do not indict white men that ont
rage our people and we, the recipients of
wrong and abuse, have to submit powerless
TO these oOiched decisions Of The ciUa tribunal
oUhere justice is a mOckeTy and injustice is
clothed an the gdrb Of righteousness, and life
itself is inperiLed." 1t is probable that this
petition was prepared at the North and.
therefore, the proceedings in our courts of
justice were not known; but It's exaggera-
ted and unqualified falsity, must be known
to every one, black or white. who witnessed
the late trials of negro criminals in this
city and its neighborhood. We hesitate
not to say, that fairer and more impartial
| trials were never known in any courts of
justice; and we doubt not that this would
be the testimony of the United States au-
| thOrities themselves
2. The petition goes on" In many
places they dare not even now assert tho
liberty secured them by the Emancipation
Proclamation; if they DO, they are out
ragged. threatened with death, and driven
from their homes, poor, homeless, naked,
hungry and without shelter"
The petition does not state where negroes
care outraged, threatened with death, and
driven from their homes, poor, homeless,
naked, hungry and without shelter" for
asserting the liberty secured to them by the
Emancip patton Proclamation. 1t asserts that
this has occurred Gin many places" 1t has
never occurred in any place; for the simple
reason, that the Emancipation Proclamation
did not secure liberty to negroes in South
Carolina. 1t was secured to them by South
Carolina herself, 10y her ordinance of eman-
cipation. Not citizen of hers has dis
puted her act, or ever attempted to hold
former slave In bondage since her Ordi-
nance of emancipation-and the tragic eff
feet, "threatened with death, driven from
their homes, poor, homeless, naked, hun
cry and without SHELTER" is as true as the
cause stated.
3. " Their wives and their children, the
old, enfeebled and decrepid, who have,been
worn out under the cruel ia SIX master, aud
the tender infant at the bosom, and the
sick-dH, all alike are now compelled to seek
refuge in temporary huts in the woods or
along the public highways"
The "crueL tdSk-mdSte1 took care Of
them when they were slaves. They were
well fed and we'll housed. They multiplied
faster than the whites and there were far
more aged people amongst the negroes,
than amongst white persons Such thing
as negro pauper was unknown. There are
old men in this city, who never, until
emancipation took place, were solicited by
a negro for aims. 1t seems now that ''their
wives and their children, the old and de-
crepie, the tender infant at the bosom, and
the sick-dH, all alike are now compelled to
seek refuge in temporary huts in the woods,
or along the public highways" Bad as
their changed condition is under emancipa-
ton, this is vile SANDER against that poll.
cy. 1t is a vile SANDER against the Freed
mems Bureau, which has twelve millions
4. But the next invention is a fling
against the Freedmen's Bureau itself The
petition says: Upon many plantations
they are compelled either to contract fer
wages, by which they could not support
their families, or be driven off-fight being
their only refuge from tyranny and abuse. "
Probably the late proceedings on the
Savannah Riot inspired this brilliant clause.
We are no advocate of this Bureau; but we
will say this much in their behalf-that no
organization could superintend the welfare
and interests of the negro population with
more zeal and fidelity, than the Freedmen's
Bureau. Whether they regard the rights
and interests of the white population, with
an equal zeal, is another thing. The wa
ges they want the planters to pay to negro
laborers have been so high during the past
year, as to have bankrupted Thousands of
our planters. They are now higher than
any laborers In any part of Europe receive.
In what nation of Europe do common field
laborers receive apeck of meal, three pounds
of bacon and twelve dollars a month, be-
sides firewood and housing?
These are the mighty wrongs which
g thunder in the index" But there is a
greater than all these told in the body of
the petition Tt is not political lit is social
intercourse and equality. The petition says:
Slavery no longer holds us in it's CALLING
clutches, but we have dropped from its
cruel shackels into the no less aoicked grasp
Of q powerful prejudice, which would con-
trive for us more 7uinoels fate than brutal
slavery. It would make our liberty curse
instead of blessing, and its every adj
vocate dangerous enemy to mankind, the
glorious Emancipation Proclamation an
edict of ruin and wretchedness, and the
great triumph of Federal arms a failure"
So, after all, nothing is done for the ne
gro by emancipation. He must Lave social
intercourse and equalHy-or his elderly is
acnrse"-its advocates are enemies to man
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. is an edict If rain
and o0retchedneSS," and the war "a failure.
They are in the aOiched grasp Of a powerful
p' ejudice," (which would contrive for us
more ruinOuS fate than brutal SlaUery"
All this exaggeration and untruth, got up
by Northern white men, has purpose
That purpose is, not to benefit the negro
but to use linn to control and degrade the
white men Of the South in the interests Of
the Radical party.