Nashville union and dispatch. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1866-1868, 1868-05-10
ABANDONMENT OF THE GULF
STATES BY THE WHITES.
Numerical PredOminance of Negroes
in the Body Polite IntOIerabIe

Some of the newspapers of Virginia APP
pear to anticipate a considerable addition
TO the white population of that State BY
migration from Southern sources. They
refer especially TO a tendency in this di-
rection on the part of South Carolinians,
who are anxious TO put themselves beyon
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 a great many more would
come were il 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 prOprietors in Virginia unite
in the offer Of liberal and inducing terms
to this class of immigrants.
This migratory movement is as abnormal
as ii is melancholy; and, though it may
pOrtend still deeper disaster for South Caro-
lima, it is not surprising. Let us hope,
however, that it will prove to be only tenl-
porary, and that this defect and unhappy
State is destined yet TO experience a situa-
ton which will invite immigration, instead
Of repelling its own population. Mean
while few salient facts, political and sta
tistical, afford ready explanation of the
movement. There is no other Southern
State except South Carolina, unless Flori-
da be one, in which the numerical predom-
nance Of the negroes is great and decided.
There are four hundred thousand of this
population in South Carolina against three
hundred thousand whites. Politically, this
disproportion is made much greater by dis
reimbursement Under the reconstruction
law, and by the frauds of Radical registra-
ton the registered white voters of the
State being only about forty-ihousand,
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 a
struggle against such numerical odds. Ii is
not the mere game for political ascendency
which they are prepared TO throw up in
despair. The capet-bag Radicals have no
imprescriptble charter to colored voters in
South Carolina any more than in Vir-
ginia or Louisiana. The political status of
the negro once out of the question, it is by
no means improbable that the policy of |
Wade Hampton and other South Carolina !
Conservatives, based on the recognition of !
ihthAisl "a iutttSNl3s VIII ~ leIEtil prevail, |
and that the majority OF the colored voters |
and the majority of the white voters will !
work tremendously 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 carpet-bag Radicalism. looms |
up as baleiul certainty, disturbing society, |
paralyzing industry, depreciating property, |
closing every avenue and suppressing every |
element Of hopeful and prosperous activity. |
Hence this impulse Of emigration. 1t is
significant that the emigrants in this case
do not seek homes in foreign countries, in !
the West, or in the far North but that |
they turn toward Virginia, in a somewhat
higher latitude, indeed, but where they may |
find 4 sympathetic public opinion, a /
climate aud a soil not much different from /
their own, and social elements, including /
considerable colored ingredient, such "a
they leave behind them. They are not re-
PEELED 10y the negro population Of Virginia, |
because they have no fear Of its predomi- /
nance there, numerical, social, and other
wise. This is a very suggestive fact.