The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-05-02
xORrRwARD MIGRATION OF WHITES.


white population of that State by migration
from Southern sources. They refer espe-
cially to tendency in this direction on the
part of South Carolinians, who are anxious
to put themselves beyond the sweep of the
dark, portentous shadow Of impending negro
supremacy. Under this impulse number of
new settlers, il is said, have already arrived
from South Carolina, and great many more
would come were it not SO difficult to sell the
lands which they abandon in the one State and
to buy lands on which to make their homes in
the other. In order to abate the last of these
difficulties, it is proposed that landed propri-
etors in Virginia unite in the offer of liberal
and inducing terms to this class Of immi-
grants.
This migratory movement is as abnormal
as it is melancholy and, though it may por-
tend still deeper disaster for South Carolina,
it is not surprising. Let us hope, however,
that it will prove to be only temporary, and
that this defect and unhappy State is des-
tined yet 10 experience situation which will
invite immigration, instead of repelling its
own population. Meanwhile, few salient
facts, political and statistical, afford a ready
explanation Of the movement There is no
other Southern State except South Carolina,
unless Florida be one. in which the numerical
predominance of the negroes is great and de-
cided. There are four hundred thousand of
this population in South Carolina against
three hundred thousand whites. Politically,
this disproportion is made much greater by
disfranchisement under the reconstruction
law, and by the frauds of radical registration;
the registered white voters of the State being
only about forty-six thousand, whereas its
registered negro voters are upwards of
eighty thousand. Those whites who
are prone to emigration by reason
of these facts, are doubtful of the
success of struggle against such numerical
odds. 1t is not the mere game for political
ascendency which they are prepared to throw
up in despair. The carpet-bag radicals have
no ipprescnptible charter to colored voters
in South Carolina any more than in Virginia
or Louisiana. The political status of the ne
gro once out of the question, it is by no
means improbable that the policy of Wade
Hampton and other South Carolina conserva-
tives, based on the recognition of identity of
interests viii at length prevail, and that the
majority of the colored voters, and the ma
jority of the white voters, will work harmoni-
ously together, and form the preponderant
political power in the State. But all this is
involved in problem of the future. In the
interval, negro supremacy, organized by car
pet-bag radicalism, looms up as a baleful GER
tainty, disturbing society, paralyzing industry,
depreciatipg property, closing every avenue
and suppressing every element of hopeful and
prosperous activity. Hence this impulse of
emigration. 1t is significant that the emil
grants in this case do not seek homes in for
eign countries, in the West, or in the far
Moth; but that they turn towards Virginia, in
a somewhat higher latitude, indeed, but where
they may find sympathetic public opinion, a
climate and soil not much different from
their own, and social elements, including a
considerable colored ingredient, such as they
leave behind them. They are not repealed
by the negro population of Virginia, because
they have no fear of its performance there,
numerical, social. and otherwise. This is a
very suggestive fact. 1t should be we'll pom
dered by all who are interested in the increase
and prosperity of New Orleans, and of Louisi-
ana at large. 1t is the interest of all who are
concerned in the prosperity of this city to
preserve it from the appearance and the fame
of negro supremacy under carpet-bag radical
auspices. We have already large numeri-
cal preponderance, and every effort should be
made by those who wish to see the city pros
porous and growing, to secure an actual and
obvious predominance Of this element in mu-
nicipal affairs. There will be for some time
to come in certain parts of the South such a
tendency to migration as that now manifested
in South Carolina. The northward direction
of this tendency, although it points no further
than Virginia, is in some sense against nature
The spontaneous course of migration is not
from a warm climate and productive soil to
acolder climate and less productive soil.
Within the historic period of the world it has
been invariably the reverse. New Orleans,
and the fertile area around it, once out of the
shadow of negro supremacy welded by rad
ical carpet-baggery, will assuredly receive &C.
cessions of wealth and population by reason
of the migratory impulse referred to.