The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-09-22
THE RADICAL CLAIM UPON THE NEGRO

| hood than that which the Radicals utter
when they tell the Southern negroes that the
North brought on and urged the late war for
the sole purpose of freeing them, and that
the South seeded for the sole purpose of pre-
serving slavery. The paramount motive with
the seeding States was to save constitutional
liberty by withdrawing from Union which,
in their apprehension, WAS about to be sub
iected to the mercies of Radical despotism.
| The paramount motive with the Northern
people was to save the Union at all hazards,
willing to incur the risk of Radical despo.
tism rather than consent to the separation Of
the sections which they regarded as the
| greater of the two evils. We have no thought
of discussing the relative merits of these
contrary positions. The result of the con-
fict made that question dead issue.
1t is perfectly true, however, and we frankly
avow it, our people were opposed, bitterly
opposed, to the uncompensated emancipation
Of the Southern slaves, upon which the Radi-
cal agitators of former period insisted Let
the freed negroes note this avowal. Let them
know the whole truth about this matter Let
them read what was in the hearts and the
thoughts of the ex-slaveholders, and of all in
the South who in common with these resisted
the abolition crusade. Our cause needs no
concealment, no reservation.
Yes, our people were opposed to the FREE
dom of the Southern negroes, as demanded
by Radical agitators in the North. But why
Apart from all considerations of race, apart
from all political and social aspects of the
question, they had substantial, legal equita-
BILE reasons for this opposition which
no man, from the Northern standpoint, could
decently dispute. They wanted to maintain
slavery, not for love of slavery, but because
the slaves were property. And how did they
come by this property Whose enterprise
created it? Who received the money which
they paid for it2
general answer to these interrogations
may be found in the fact that the slavery in
the United States which finally, from industrial
and commercial causes, made its seat in the
South, originated at the North. One of the
principal employments of New England ships
was, at well known period, the importation of
slaves from the coast of Africa. These were
the seeds from which grew the slave popula-
population was originally Northern merchan-
disc bought in Africa for few kegs of rum,
few bolts of painted cloth, or a few pack
ages of worthless beads. The New England
"trafickers in human flesh pushed their
live goods, with the characteristic energy of
Yankee enterprise, into every opening which
they could find either north or south of the
Potomac.
But at length slave labor became unprofit-
able in the Northern States. Then it was
that, by the same kind of thrift and tact, the
slaves in those States were pressed upon the
South, and the cultivation of tobacco, rice
cotton and sugar was stimulated in order to
increase the Southern demand for this species
of surplus Northern property, so that it was
sold off at handsome price.
This is the way in which our people came
to be the only slaveholding community in the
United States and this is why they were
opposed to the unconditional abolition of
slavery at the demand of Northern Radicals.
They did not object to emancipation upon
proper conditions. But they did object to
give up, without pay, this property which
they had inherited from their ancestors, and
which those ancestors honestly purchased for
hard cash from the ancestors of the North
ern agitators who demanded its surrender.
We have remarked, on previous occasions,
that the Radicals of the North had wGntonly
annihilated two thousand millions of Southern
property, the value of Southern slaves. This
statement needs Qualification. They did not
intend the absolute destruction of this pro-
perty. They only intended to take it back
base scoundrels who at one time infested the
South, selling negro, tutored for the purpose,
and after pocketing the price, stealing him
back to be sold again. They lay claim to the
Southern negro by priority of possession.
And this, vicious as it is, is the best title
which they can set up. They have no idea of
giving him real freedom. They demand the
perpetual use of him as poAical chattel.
This is what reconstruction means,
and what carpet-baggery will exemplify
if allowed to do so. Our people,
when, not long since, in their conventions
and legislatures, they declared the negroes
free, meant exactly what they said. They
want the negro now to be a man, an indie
pendent, Southern man, having the same
political interests as the Southern white
man, and ready to stand by the latter
in maintaining them; not a servile
creature to do the dirty work-and for
him fatal work, too-of a vile and unscrupul-
GUS faction. Our people are the only sincere
and practical friends of the true liberty of the
so-called freedmen.