Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1867-03-25
Steyeus and ConfiscatiOn.

The Whites of the South are not suf-
ficiently punished in the desolation and
poverty that War has taken to their doors,
in the estimation of THADDEUs STEVENS.
Some days ago he introduced into Con-
gress bill contiscating the lands of the
late Rebels in the South and dividing them
up among the Negroes in forty acre lots
and giving to each Negro thus presented
with forty acre lot one hundred dollars
to erect thereon building. On Tuesday
of last week, STEVENS made an argument in
favor of his bill. A most merciful measure
he represented it, because the Southern
people, who were rich in land, could con-
slider themselves favored beyond compari-
son ii they were permitted to live with
whole skins. The proposition is a mon
strous one, and must be repugnant to the
feelings of every humane man, whether he
fbe Republican or Democrat. While STE
VEINS thus aims at reducing the Southern
Whites to extreme poverty who have not
already been reduced to that condition, he
is solicitous that ample care should be ta-
ken of the Negroes there. He claims
that this measure, or at least that fea-
ture of it which provides homesteads
for the Negroes, is essential to the 'happi-
ness and respectability of the colored race''
and to "their very existence" Just liber-
ated from slavery, unused to business
transactions, generally knowing nothing
about mechanical employments, he thinks
they would not only cut a sorry figure in
the race of life, but would invite speedy
extinction as race. He seems to depre-
cate war of races, and yet this scheme, to
which heis now giving Jealous advocacy,
is more than anything else calculated to
provoke war of races. To despoil race
of its property and hand it over to a con-
| fessedly inferior race-a race that is un-
equal to the exactions of business and en-
terprise-and it will require miraculous
Intervention to prevent a war of races. 1t
will even require something of this sort of
Intervention to carry into successful exc
cution the provisions of the Military Re-
construction bill, whereby the Negroes are
to be constituted voters and that privilege
taken away from the large majority of the
Whites.
| Say that the Blacks can be made voters
and the holders Of homesteads through the
disfranchisement Of the Whites and the
lconfiscation of their lands and property,
without engendering between the two races
deadly enmity, it becomes us to consider
whether this kind OF work is calculated to
promote our welfare. We have something
considerable at stake in this matter. Will
the cutting up of the South into
forty acre patches for the Blacks de-
velop the resources of that country
more than they will be developed un-
der the ownership of the Whites? Our
public debt oppresses everything. "Dull
times-money tight "-is cry that comes
from all quarters. To help the country out
of its present difficulty, abundant cotton
crops are needed in the South, coupled with
good crops in other sections of the country.
Cut the South up into forty acre patches.
deal them out among the Blacks, and
send the White owners adrift, and
we need not look to the South for much in
the way of cotton or for demands upon our
manufacturers for machinery and textile
fabrics. Every consideration of self inter-
est, therefore should impel us to oppose the
subordination of the Whites to the Blacks
in the South. If by any possibility it could
be made appear through inconvertible au--
thority that where the Blacks have had un-
restricted sway, they have shown more
enterprise, more skill, shrewder insight
into business, than Whites, it would fur
nish an extenuating circumstance for the
coinage of vengetul feelings into laws that
strip the Whites of everything-of proper
ty and of the privilege of voting. Such
authority, however, cannot be found, and
as the putting into execution of irrational
vengeance does not customarily fill our
larders, replenish our wardrobes and 'put
money" in our purses, it were well to be
done with this kind of vengeance and stick
to our own race yet a while longer.