The Charleston daily news. [volume] (Charleston, S.C.) 1865-1873, 1869-04-17
CHI ARLE E S ON.
SATURDAY MORNING, APRIL II, 1869
The Ever Faithful Isle.

the Island Of Cuba, and from the same reli-
able source we learn that the control of the
Spaniards over the remainder is in jeop-
ardy. The insurrectionists have an organ
lied semi-military government, supported
by an army of forty thousand men in the
field, which could easily be doubled in num-
bers if arms and equipments could be had.
This sounds well, and is echoed and re-
echoed by the metropolitan and provincial
press. 1t is fine thing surely to sympathize
with nation struggling to be free. There is
a1attering JUNCTION in the reflection that each
public meeting and each leading article is
blow on the side of liberty. And in view
of the historic fact that the American Rad
ical is an ingenious and disinterested NOR
tai, who has never oppressed others or tied
thongs to the whip of military tyranny, it
is pleasant to hear these cries Of sympathy
with Cuba and with Crete, these appeals to
the government to recognize the Cuban
rebels, all these hints that the officers of
the United States should wink at the e1pe-
ditions which are being fitted out to aid
struggling Cuba. 1t is true that Cuba is
province of Spain, and that, according to
International law, the United States have
not one 1.-THE of the right to recognize the
Cubans as belligerents that England and
France had to recognize the Confederate
States. But who cares now for principle I?
Who cares for the right or the wrong of if
when the question is to unshackle the hui
man race, and at one fell swoop establish
unqualified negro equality?
This is the secret of the friendliness of
the Northern Radicals to the Cuban insur
rectionists. The Democratic presses give
the insurrection their support because they
know that the Spaniards ere treating their
prisoners, and those who are suspected of
giving countenance to the rebellion, with 3
bloody brutality which no Valley raider or
spoon peculator could surpass; and also,
perhaps, because they are willing that the
Gem of the Antilles should fall into the lap
of the Union, 80 that the Radicals may have o
new and distant field in which to practicethe
arts of profitable reconstruction. But the
anchor which prevents the Radical ship
from breaking away from its moorings is
what the Tribune calls the t'moral value"
of the unmistskable position which the
UuDans nola IN taking as their purpose "the
'spolicy Of emancipation and full enfran-
"chisement of all their citizens"
We Of the South had thought that Car
olina cotton field was an earthly paradise
when compared with Cuban sugar plan
tation, and we have, SO far, no great
faith in the moral value of emancipation
coupled with the right to vote. The freed
men Of the South have shown no capacity
for self. government, and have fallen prey
to the oily tongues and winning ways ofthe
political negro traders. Southern freed
men were, at the time of their emsncipa-
tioH, more intelligent and more, capable of
improvement than are the Cuban negroes,
and yet the Southern freedmen are very far
from being able to take good care of them
selves, or to make just laws for the benefit
of themselves and others.
It seems, however, that there is virtue
in ignorance. Because he was illiterate
and dull, the Southern negro received the
highest privileges which man may enjoy
There was to be security for himself in his
very want Of knowledge, and security for
others in his very stupidity. There has
been some little jarring of the machinery,
some sign that fool who possesses power
may soon become knave. But the Radi-
cal party is party of great moral ideas,
and the more besotted and barbsrous the
Cuban negroes may be, the more will Rsdi-
calism applaud the revolution which dares
to set them free.
We have of course no fondness for Spain;
but on the other hand we cannot but feel
that Cuba might be more prosperous under
the yoke of Spain than under the rule of
half million negroes enjoying the right
to hold Office and the right to vote. What
we desire is the freedom of Cuba, not its
subsection to the rule Of the negro; and
we fear :tat the Cubans, in bidding high
for Radical sympathy, forget what is nec-
essary for their own safety, and embrace
an unnatural doctrine which, if persevered
in, will debase them and their people, and
lead to the speadY ruin of the s.EYer Blessed