Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1868-05-22
Our Political situation.


Our Political Situation.
| While there is much in our political sit
nation to excite our fears and cause us to
have much anxiety for the future, there is
nothing to make us despair of a final de-
liverance. While Congressional legislation
has, for the time being, fastened upon us
negro supremacy, it can in North Carolina
only be temporary, even if these acts are
endorsed by the people of tho United
| States The time must assuredly soon
come when white ascendancy in this, if
not in all the Southern States, will
be re-established. We are satisfied
that many, very many, white men
were infue need to vote for the COnstitu-
| ton at the recent election in this State
through fears of confscation, military in
| reference, renewed war and another act
| of consumption. It is not for one moment
to be supposed that twenty-five or thirty
| thousand white men in North Carolina were
voluntarily in favor of universal negro slf-
frage and desired the prostration of our
judiciary by the election of such men as
Russell and Tourgee. 1t cannot be posi-
BILE. We have not yet, as a people, sunk to
such depths of infamy and disgrace. 1t will
be found hat many causes operated to
bring about this result, prominent among
which were fear and fraud.
In the Fall election, with these two
causes removed and the addition of fifteen
or twenty thousand white voters, there can
be no doubt as to the position of North
Carolina. Then we will not have Regis
trars who use their official positions to
| insure their own elections we will not
! have three days of election in order to vote
negroes in as many counties. The acquit-
tai of the President will give the moral in
| fuence of his official position in aid of his
| friends. The removal of the military or
will embolden the people to give free ex-
preston to their opinions. There cannot,
we repeat, be any doubt rs to the voice
| North Carolina will give in that election.
But even should we fail. and the power
of the patriotic people of the North be I'M
able to defeat the vile purposes of the
Radi calls to control the South by means Of
negro acknowledgements and white disfran-
| easements, the early future must decide
| these questions in our favor A land SO
| favored and blessed as is this Southern
country, must rapidly fill up with industri-
Gus and enterprising white settlers. Nature
has done much for us, and as soon as the
| disturbing elements are quoted, our ma
| tural advantages must attract the atten-
| ton of that class of people who are
looking out for profitable homes. The
South can sustain a population of fifty
millions, and the time will soon come
when the people of the oyer-crowded
countries of the Old World will begin to
flock to the inviting fields OF these South
ern States. Even such negrophilists as
HORACE GREELEY appreciates these facts.
He said in recent speech to Southern
negroes, that twenty years hence the
South will have 25, 900, 900 to 100000 of
people, whereof the blacks will probably
number 5000, 900 or G, O0OO Unless all
the laws which have hitherto governed the
increase of population are subverted, the
whites of the South must increase faster than
| the blacks by at least four to one Not that
! the blacks will fail to increase also, but they
are in no wise recruited by emigration,
and cannot be. Africa sends forth no vol
untary emigrants; the slave trade is on its
last legs; and no negroes are coming to this
country from a'ay quarter. Ho,c, then, is it
possible that The 1000, 10000 of blacks in this
country should Orerbear tbe8 900, 900 Of srAues
IN the South, aUuM tie millions on The point Of
t1Ocking hither?"
Not only our forlorn political condition
| depresses our people, but the very great
scarcity of mon ey is also fruitful source of
| prostration. The one is the direct conse-
quence of the other, and they would pass
| away together. Our lands and climate,
our mines and mineral resources. and our
great staples, forming, as they do, an impor-
tant portion of the wealth of the country,
are now rendered almost worthless but in
the face of their material necessity to the
whole country, the Northern POLITICAL lido
syncracies which now destroy them cannot
| long prevail.
Then, let us be of good cheer, and bear
with composure our present burdens in
sure hope of a speedy deliverance. The
night has been long and dark, and the
darkest hour is just before day. It is not
in the nature of things for North Carolina
to remain Africanized or continue to be
impoverished. The day of our deliverance
cannot be far distant.
The famine and pestilence in Algeria has,
it is stated, destroyed one hundred thou
sand Arabs within the last six months
The sufferings of the people are as horri-
bic as those of the inhabitants of the Ital-
ian cities in the middle ages. A plague
like disease, as is usual in seasons of famine,