New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1868-03-26
NEMESTH.

Will the ex-slaveholders and ex-reDels
of the South never learn Experience
it is said. teaches even fools; but II
has not yet taught them. For seven
years mot counting the preliminary strug'
gle) they have been combating the prln-
ciple of nationality and the cause OF uni
versal freedom, only to see the one anu
the other triumphant in every encounter
They went into the war of the rebeliloh
for the avowed purpose of establishing
separate nationality based on human
slavery; they came out of it conquered
provinces, garrisoned by their emancipated
slaves. They went into it flushed with
wealth and the pride of rulership; they
came out of it poverty stricken and humil-
lated, without means, without homes, with
out a country, many of them without even
God, for they had impiously staked their
faith in him on the result of the war and
lost it. The will of God and the power OF
gunpowder were both against them; they
would not bow to the former, but they
were forced to yield to the latter, II they
had then profted by the severe lesson OF
their failure. if they had quietly gone to
werk to repair their material LOSSES their
situation would probably by this time have
been very different; but such was not their
course. Misled by the treacherous policy
of Andrew Jonnsonthey claimed that. their
hands no longer welding the bayOnet, had
a right to resume the ballot. They haugh-
tily appealed TO the constitution as theiI
authority for demanding their rights as
American citizens" .forgetful apparently
that as rebels and traitors the only consti'
tutional right that remained to them was
that of being tried for their crimes. Pulled
up with false notions, they swarmed back
from the seat Of war, determined to drive OF
the Yankee intruders who were polluting
their soil. Massacres like those of Memphis
and New Orleans showed the spirit in
which they were prepared to recognize the
results of the war. The disdainful rejec
ton by every rebel legislature Of the mag
unanimous terms offered in the fourteenth
amendment to the constitution showed how
blind they were to their OWE impotence
and to the power Of the United States
They have fought step by step agains
every reform, and step by step they have
been driven to the wall They resisted thu
" civil rights act" and fast on its heel
came the reconstruction law. They en-
deavored to defeat the object of that BY
taking advantage Of an over-magnanimou!
clause, and that clause was repealed. They
could not endure negro jurors, and nov
they must vote on a fundamental law framed
in part by negro Legislators. VIII they
learn yet Are the signs of the times be
coming clearer to their pride-clouded eyes
or are they meditating further madness
Will they take to heart the admonitions o
experience, or will they tempt the Almighty
still further? Let them look back to the
day of the whip and the auction block, ant
then glance their eyes over the changes
which secession has caused in the condition
Of the Africo-American race. ColoreG
soldiers, cOlored schools, colOred police
men, colored jurymen, colored Ofice-hOld
ers, colored Legislators! Truly, The mill
of the gods griRd slowly, but grind exceed
ingly fine. " Truly, the world moves onward
until Gods immutable law becomes thi
law Of all the nations of the earth.