The tri-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1866-1868, 1867-10-31
D,scbarsins CoIored Hands.

The Rebels of Virginia are dscharging their
colored hands because they thought proper
to exercise, for their own good, the right of
suffrage recently bestowed on them by act
of Congress. Many Rebels in North-C Caro-
lima will probably do the same thing after
the election in this State In the first place,
such conduct on the part of landholders
and employers is mean, 1evengeful, and ty-
rannical; and in the second place, such a
course will very soon rebound with destruc-
tive force on these narrow minded tyrants.
The negro laborers are indispensable to land
holders and others in this State. They can
not do without this labor. They must have
it, or their fields will grow up in weeds and
they will not make even support. They
talk about white labor for their plantations
thought maturcly about this white labor
from abroad In the first place, it is doubt
full whether such labor will come here to
compete with the crlored race; and in the
second place, if it should come, employers
will find very different class of laborers
to pay them at least SIS per month each, as
much as they get in the Northern and Yves
tern States; and they would have to receive
and treat them as their equals socially, as
they are not expected to treat the colored
race. Then the foreign white laborer would
have to learn how to make cotton and to-
bacco, and to conform his notions and habits
to our state of society. Again, foreign
white laborers are not coming here until free
schools of various grades are established for
the education of the children of the people.
They are not coming here until our system of
internal Improvements is revived and placed
on a healthy footing, with low rates for
freight and travel. They are not coming
here until they can see certainty that after
few years labor they can purchase good
lands at low prices for themselves and fami-
lies. They are not coming here until every
thing is settled, and they can feel that they
are men, entitled to and welding as much
political power as others. So it is apparent
that white labor can not be brought into the
State at an early period. The dependence
must be on the colored people, who have
thus far worked remarkably well, all things
considered, and whose only fault seems to
be that they will not vote with the old Rebel
leaders who ruined the country, and who have
no favors for laboring men, white or black.
Under these circumstances, if the policy of dis
charging hands for voting their honest senti-
ments should be adopted in this State, what
would be the result if all the laboring color
ed men should unite at the beginning of
1868 and determine not to strike lick un-
less they were paid $25 cash each, at the
end, of each month The rebel leaders would
do well to ponder these things. Labor in
this country is now able to vindicate and
| protect itself It will do it. e Labor is now
| a great moral as we'll as physical force. The
moral sentiment of the country will rise up
at once in behalf of those who are denied the
right to labor, because they have freely ex-
ercised their rights. The colored man will
not alone be stricken when thus discharged
from employment, but every laboring white
man, feeling that his. turn may come next,
will unite to vindicate the nobility and the
independence of labor against such contemp-
!, tible, short-sighted tyranny.
1t is little remarkable, but entirely in