The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-09-03
The WAY FOR FREEDMEN TO BE INDIE
ga PENDENT.

in fact, is further from their wishes. The
freedmen's bureau, the reconstruction system
the carpet-baggers' apportionment, or rather
monopoly, of Office and plumber, are all based
on the assumption of the abject dependence
of the freedmen upon the Radical party. and
of the lasting obligation of the freedmen to
hold themselves at the beck and call OF
Radical drivers and taskmasters According
to this theory the South is a great political
plantation, and the Southern negroes are the
hands assigned to work it They are organ
lied to plant votes early and often. But they
are not expected to reap where they have
| sown. The bulk of the harvest is for ring OF
bloated obgarchs at the North, and the rest is
for distribution among pack of ravenous
and heartless agents and whippers-in at the
South.
But this arrangement threatens to fall
through. The freedmen begin to perceive
that it is slavery only in another and worse
form. Thousands of them are preparing to
throw it of by casting their votes and their
lots with the body of the Southern white
people, with whose interests, as they are at
length justly persuaded, their own true inter-
ests are indissolubly bound up.
The Radicals are filed with dismay and
chagrin. They ancied that they had blind,
unreasoning piece of political property in the
colored vote of the South. But 10 suddenly
this chattel presumes to think for itself 1t
breaks up into conscious Municipalities, NOV
ing about with not the least reference to
Radical plans and calculations Still more
horrible, much of it walks off in open day
and without attempt at disguise, and joins the
ranks OF the Democratic enemy.
We are, of course, heartily glad to see this
Radical plantation, stocked with negro voters,
going to ruin. But we do not wish to see the
freedmen, after terminating their bondage
under political managers and overseers, be-
come. as employees in town or country, alb
jectly dependent upon those who employ
them. Such relation, to say nothing of its
tendency to enlarge the field of political cor
ruption, can mean only evil, and evil continu-
ally, for the material interests as well as for
the social harmony and happiness of the COM
-----i'.- Yet in a large measure the freedmen
are now at Inc mercy or-..--.---L:4-- ~.anlo,,-
ers, and it is by reason of Radical policy that
they are so. 1t is due solely to the forbear-
ance and generosity of those whom the Radi-
calls had designed to Cypress and despoil
through the fundamentally of the colored
vote, that many thousands of colored people
have not been cast off as laborers and con-
signed to the depths of want and misery.
Now, is it asking too much of such laborers to
urge that they shall not vote for the ruin of
those who have thus befriended them, espe-
cially as that ruin would bring on their
own?
The Radicals pretend that to influence COL
ored voters in this way is an outrage upon
their political freedom, and they propose to
prevent it by laws for compelling employers
to keep obnoxious and improbable employees.
But it is no outrage. 1t is only the exercise
of clear duty of selfpreservation, and mere
legislation, such as indicated, cannot stop it
or put an end to the dependent condition of
freedmen as a laboring class. The fact is
that, under Radical misrule, this dependence
must constantly increase, and the means of
offering profitable employment, or employ
ment of any kind, must become constantly
less. 1t is very true, as the freedmen are told
by the Radicals, that if all colored laborers
were to emigrate or to stop work, the property
Of our white people would be almost value
less But they can do neither, SO hard is
Radical policy upon the labor interest," as
well as all other honest interests. Poverty
pins them down and keeps their noses to the
grindstone. And, still worse. 1t is also
very true-and this the Radicals have
taken care not to tell the freedmen-that
it is the white property holders,
capitalists and men of business
In the South who create the demand there for |
colored labor, and that the colored laborer is |
independent in proportion to the extent of |
this demand. 1t is also very true-and this
the Radicals cannot deny, plainly attested as
it is by the history of the past three years
that the tendency of their policy is to render
property more and more an idle possession;
to more and more repel and drive away capt.
tai, and to more and more dishearten and de-
press enterprises of business. Nothing has
kept any of these interests in such activity as
hey have thus far shown but the hope of the
future downfall of the Radical power. If this
hope fail, the doom of Southern prosperity
will be final. Property will be barren, capt.
al will vanish, enterprise will wither, labor
will be worthless; the schill and gloom of
Oscillation will settle upon ALL
Clearly, then, there is but one course for
he freedmen if they wish to secure for them
elves either profitable labor or independence
IS laborers-and that is to vote and to work
gainst Radicalism.
CAUSE AND PARTIES TO INDIAN OUrRAGEs-
he Indian bureau has advices that the present |
faI Al |