Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1868-05-22
to compose an orderly and harmonious
state ont of two discordant elements. If

relationship than are the white man and
the black, could not, in England, make up
State, common government, IN which
each were to take part; one race ruled.
Norman and Saxon, who, by going but a
few years back, could trace up a common
ancestry, could not make up mixed gov
eminent of the two until intermarriage had
effaced the distinction between them
The distinction cannot in this instance be
effaced, even in time, for the mulatto con-
tinues to be a black. If all the Southern
population became mulattoes, that would
not solve the difficulty for the mulatto,
as race, will not live. 1t is practically
not race, but, as it's name imports, a
mule. In the mixed governments now
proposed for the South the effort is to be
made, in spite of all the warnings of his
tory, to blend together the two races which
are The furthest apart in nature, and the
most unlike of any two races in the world.
The white man OF this country stands at
the head of civilization; the black almost
at the foot of the list of savages.
divided by law higher than our laws into
two classes distinctly marked classes.
This division is sure to be permanent. It
is a natural instinct in men SO situated to
cling to their own class, to counsel only
with it, to act only with it. There will be,
then, no political parties there but the
white party and the black party. A few
renegades from the whites will, for the sake
of power, go over to be leaders of the
blacks, but in the main the division will
always be as now-whites on one side,
blacks on the other. Whichever of these
parties may get the ascendancy in local
politics, the government will be a class
government seeking the interest not of
people, but of the ruling class. The blacks
have the ascendancy now not by their own
force, but by the aid of machinery supplied
by the General Government. In some of
the States provision has been made for such
from voting. In others, military arrange
ments have been made for controlling the
dissatisfied whites. In some, large bodies
Of white men are directly disfranchised and
shut out from share IN the government
So long as these mixed governments exist
there will be constant struggle for one
class or the other to get the upper hand,
If the whites were in the ascendancy now,
no doubt nearly all the blacks would have
been shut out from share in the gov
eminent.
There can be no such thing as blend
ed representation of the community as
not blended. The State governments are
sure to be class governments representing
not the whole people, but either the black
as ruling class, or the whites. We are,
in fact, narrowed down to this choice
shall the white men rule in the South, OF
shall the blacks there rule the whites p
Strive as we may, we shall be able to bring
the problem only to one or the other of
these solutions.
"The great evil of negro government
will not be that few negroes may get into
Congress or into the State Legislatures
that would be small evil. A few we'll
chosen negroes might teach good manners
to some Of the white mem bers of the pre-
sent Congress. The great evil of negro
suffrage is that it means, in many districts,
negro justices of the peace and negro
constables. The home government of
neighborhoods are the governments most
Wiz To 1,n e
are not such as to conduce to order, content
and comfort the country at large cannot
have its just measure of peace, industry
and prosperity. There is no Northern
neighborhood which could endure negro
and negro local officers either
the negro officers would be expelled by
violence or the whites would abandon the
neighborhood.
"There is no such thing possible as put
ting the negroes and the white men at the
South on footing of equality. Nature
forbids it, Unless they can be put on such
an exact footing Of equality that in every
relation of life the distinction Of color is
lost sight of, there can be 10 such thing as
the representation of the people in the pro-
posed governments at the South. The
public officers of all kinds will represent
one people or the other; they will repre-
sent the majority, and the majority will al
ways be either the black people exclusive
~ or the VIII tie people. Glass govern
ments under universal negro suffrage at
the South are inevitable. The whites, be-
ing DISTINGUISHED, cannot now assert their
natural superiority; and the negro govern
ments which may get into power will re-
sort to continued Acknowledgement as their
means of retaining the control.
NEGRO suffrage, enforced by the North,
means, practically, not negro equality, but
negro superiority; that the negroes, as a
class, shall rule the whites.''
Death of Hon. John A. Gilmcr.
The death of Hon. John A. Gilmer is
in tho Graansboro' Patriot of