The New Orleans crescent., 1868-10-06
SOCIAL WAR.

WING VIC Indignantly DkeAo - Il
calumnious the Radical stories, omciai or un-
official, got up for the campaign, and alleging |
the svstematic murder of freedmen by white |
people in this State, we do not hesitate to adj
NIT the increasing frequency OF sanguinary
collisions between the two races. We also
deeplv lament the sacrifice Of life which at |
tends these scenes. But we do not regret
that as an almost invariable rule, the number
of killed and wounded in these cases. on the
part of the blacks, is greater than 1t Is on the
mart of the whites On the contrary, for rsa-
sons which the most enlightened humanity as
we'll IA the highest expediency will indorse, we
rejoice at this disparity. Such lesson was
needed to extricate the minds Of q numerous
class of the colored population from the per-
nicious delusions into which they had been
ensnared by Radical teachings. They were
told, for example, that all the visible wealth
around them was the product OF their
industry; that the continued possession
of it by others was in the nature OF
a perpetuated robbery; that 1T was
riphtfully theirs, and they might rightfully
reclaim it by force, if need be, or consign 1t
to flames, if they were not permitted quietly
to appropriate and use it. They were told,
moreover, that their white neighbors were IN
fexibly opposed to the continuance OF their
free status, and resolutely bent on re-enslav-
| ing them whenever it should be possible to do
SO. And still further, they were told-and
| this was for the negro dupes the most afro
cious lie of aii-that they were Pnysicaiy
superior TO the whites, and that, to subvert
| the present social order at the South, putting
| the blacks on top and the whites underneath,
else expelling or exterminating the latter 1t
was only necessary that they should arm, or
ganize, and boldly strike for the universal as
tendency to which they were urged to aspire.
The conflicts which have just occurred in
the interior of this State are the legitimate
fruits of these inculcations. In every instance
we see that the peace is broken, that slaughter
ensues. in consequence of incidents which, IN
ordinary times, would be regarded as trivial,
but which now serve as sparks to kindle a
conflagration only because the minds of
negroes have been wrought up to the most
iuAammable condition. The least wrong,
whether real or imaginary, by white man to
a negro is magnified into deliberate and
deadly attack upon the black race, and thous-
ands of freedmen are ready to revenge an in
dividual and casual injury by indiscriminate
onslaught upon their white neighbors. The
venom of Radical inspiration has done its
work thus far among this class of negroes in
causing them to be more and more impatient
of contradiction, more and more disposed to
resent the necessary delays of legal
remedy or adjustment, more and more
suspicious and bitter towards the
body of Southern whites, more and more
inclined to obey the gregarious instinct, in
case one of their number is injured, and to
commence a war of determination against the
race of the person who did the injury.
These developments, stimulated by the
basest class of Radical politicians, will NOT
stop with the political purposes which those
politicians intended them to accomplish. They
transcend the ordinary arena of politics.
Their significance is far deeper than that oi
any contest for mastery in government be-
tween parties of differing views. They
mean nothing less than social war-wal
to the uttrance, in which, if it goes on, one
race or the other must suffer expulsion or ex
termination. 1t comes to this at last whether
the Radical leaders originally designed it Oh
not, that the South must be surrendered t
African barbarism, to the jungle and th'
swamp, unless the white men of the Soutt
shall maintain the ascendency of Caucasian
civilization, regardless of immediate politca
consequences with invincible hearts, and
if need be, with bloody hands.
1t is morally impossible that civilized soci
ETY. can exist in this country with the negr'
element supreme. The idea is as preposterou
as to think of balancing one of the Egyptian
pyramids on its apex. 1t is time that thi
should be said and fully understood 70
nothing can come from blinking it but evi
to both races, to the South, to the who'll
country. And colored people who have beei
duped into an overweening notion of thei
strength, in SO much that they fancy them
selves able, at any moment, at any provoca
ton or pretext of provocation, to rise NJ
like whirlwind and sweep away the obnox
J ious whites, can only be cured of this delu
sion by sharp, and bitter, and disastrou
experience. The social war which the,
have been wickedly instigated to bring on, i
one which no presidential election. resulting
as it may, can settle. 1t must be settled be
, tween the races-and the white race neve
vet went down in such contest.