The Montana post. [volume] (Virginia City, Montana Territory [i.e. Mont.]) 1864-1869, 1868-01-04
CANARES.

f iAodUehtly WlJhln the past few
months certain telegrams, usually accred-
tied to "the Herald's special" coming
from Virginia, Alabama, Georgia, Louis
lana and other unreconstructed frag-
ments of rebellion, wherein dire rorebo-
dings of horrible outrages upon the op-
pressed and humiliated whites by irate
and rampant negroes, usually spelled
niggers in the dispatches) have been
INDUCED in to an extent that fully pre-
pared one for succeeding dispatch Civ
ing the details of a st. Bartholomew
slaughter, or Fort Pillow massacre with
the respective positions of the parties
reversed. We acknowledge to having
read the first of these with some anxiety.
Succeeding ones were received In a more
comfortable frame OF mind, and they have
now become stale aud stupid jests. Du-
ring election times, when a vote might
be influenced by such means, there may
have been some little excuse for the man.
ufacture and telegraphic transportation
of such verbal commodities but that
time having po ossed, it is ridiculous if
not sinful to be continually concocting
aud disseminating fabrications against
those who, to the best of our knowledge,
are guiltless of any manifestations of vio-
lence and receive their heritage of free
dom as humbly and peacefully as they
wore for centuries the CALLING yoke of
oppression and slavery We take it that
history records no such instance of quiet
endurance of bondage, or such grateful
and peaceful acceptance OF God given,
man-withheld rights,a that presented in
the southern States of this Union. The
very charges made against them, if
facts, are the most eloquent arguments
in proof of their worthiness. 1t has been
stated that in many counties where the
blacks largely outnumbGr the whites,
and were armed, drilled and prepared
for the field, that serious apprehensions
were entertained that rising would oc-
cur and the whites be subjected to the
most inhuman outrages and butcheries.
That the blacks outnumber the whites
in many sections is true that they are
armed and drilled, the authors of those
dispatches should be assured of before
making such statements, and if these
things are true, and we still have the
first instance to learn where they have
committed any outrage, it is certainly
an evidence in their favor that they
treasure no vindictiveness toward their
late masters. Centuries of degrading
servitude would deteriorate any race of
people physically and mentally. Their
conventions may not be characterized by
erudite statesmanship, The statutes
that made il penal crime to instruct
them in the first elements of that edu-
cation, without which the poorest toiler
in the North would dread to send his
children into the worlds conflict, have
hot been calculated to develop states
men. Yet, with this fact in view, we of
the superior race have found il neces-
sary to invent falsifcations and misin-
terpret utterances to make points of OBJ
lection against the conduct of those
whom we are wont to class IS unworthy
of equality before the law. They are
charged with plotting violence, yet none
has been committed their representa-
tives are made 10 utter threats, when
their language was temperate and con-
ciliatory; they have been accused oflazy
thriftlessness, when facts have demon>
strated that by the thousand they have
been turned in the face of winter, after
an unpaid summers work, in violation
of all honesty and justice. We were not
of those who looked favorably upon the
reconstruction of the South by universal
enfranchisernent of the blacks, or the ex-
tension of the privilege TO those in the
Territories, bus accepting that which
was inevitable, we have seen no abuse
of the privileges bestowed upon them
here, or learned of any in the South. Ii
we are not charitable toward them we
should at least be just; give them credit
and honor when it is earned and not con-
lure up and manufacture base designs a
eaiust those who have as yet done no
evil. or manifested a disposition to do SO.
These oft repeated unfulflied rumors
nave became infamous libels and il is un
worthy of US as people to disparage
those by fabrication. against whom no
evidence of guilt exists, and whose chief
crime appears to be a shade of complex
ion. for which they are not more ac-
coantAble than we are entitled to credit
for ours
"A newspaper has been started In
% Dit. - ITtah IL il called "Our Dixie