The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-02-25
THE PHANTOM OF "sEGao STATES

That the radical party has contrived to get
itself between the devil and the deep sea, :"
is fact 10 zshiah radical jea.snalists and poll
ticians are the most emphatic witnesses. 1t
inspires the present course of Congress and
the prevailing tone of the radical press.
Every new spasm in the congressional frenzy
of reconstruction, every fresh gush of hyster-
zeal fury from the New York Tribune and
kindred sheets, are confessions that the fact
exists, and that the knowledge of it is mad
dening. The deep sea into which the radicals
are driven by party exigency, is the immeasu-
rable gulf Of perils which yavns in the pro-
spect of negro supremacy. These perils per-
petually haunt the minds of the radical lead
ers, unsettling their nerves and obscuring
their hopes, like the spectral premonitions to
Richard on the eve of Bosworth. And, like
that doomed tyrant, they are fain to recover
confidence and maintain energy by deriding
tho vision entirely phantasmal, and only
fit to brighten women and children. They feel
that their party win soon be shisered by the
shock Of reaction unless they can quiet the
popular mind with the belief that negro SUI
premacy is the mere bugbear of their politi-
cal adversaries. The St Louis Democrat, for
example, pursues this line of argument in a
recent editorial from which we quote below:
It is related IN the " Arabian Nights that
when Aladdin rubbed his magic lamp and a
gigantic Afrite suddenly appeared before him, he
started back In CONSERVATION. Some Republicans
initiate Aladdin, it seems. They sought anxiously
and long for some solution Of tie problem Of re-
construction: The problem was. in States where
majority OF the whites are obstinately disloyaI,
TO create loyal governments. They were driven
almost to despair. Holding in its hand the Alad.
din's lamp Of magic power, by which AL Difficult
ties could be surmounted, Congress feared to use
1t. The Afrites and genii, slaves OF the lamp,
who wsuld have answered at their call, were I'M
fortunately blacki Congress doubted and hest
tated, ard finally tried constitutional amendment.
and stumbled and fell. Falling, it gave the lamp
. rub, and behold, the Afrite stands before it
There are Republicans who start back in alright,
as If the being summoned to their presence we're
a deadly and asenging demon. instead of willing
slave OF the lamp. The Republican idea-equal
sumsge, the center and core OF Iree institutions-
was the magic power to which Congress in its
hour Of difficulty appealed. . Congress
was pushed By necessity to its last resort-it was
forced to summon to the ballot-box loyal but
hitherto dsfranchised blacks. They came ct its
bidding. . The fears that men once in
dulged have been rebuked by facts. 1t is no
demon that stands before u.s. terrible, reveneefuI.
violent, manageable. 1t is q willing slave of
the lamp.
OF course, the Democrat knows very well
that the magic power really appealed to in
this case was not equal suffrage, but congress
sional prescription enforced by the bayonet.
1t knows very well that the ''willing slave of
the lamp" is simply the creature, and thus far
the minister of this proscriptive policy. II
knows very well that the ascendency of the
radical party now depends on negro rule in
the South, on the creation and continuance of
negro States, through the military power
of the United States welded in the interest of
a partiOn despotism. But the Democrat also
knows very well that it would be fatal i'm
prudence to ayow that the fairest portion of
the country was to be given up to the social
and Industrial ruin involved in the install
ment and maintenance of negro governments
through the instrumeatality of the bayonet
Hence it takes occasion to represent negro
supremacy as an illusion which the future is
destined 10 dispel, and says:
The negro ststesr viii soon be as white as
any in the Union. Immigration wiz dow in.