Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1871-08-02
Fos THE NEGRO.

After WaQlng through the muitlrileQ
horrors of the Ku-Klux sub COMMITTEES
report from South Carolina the believ-
ing Radical might well ask, after the
fashion of the bewildered but Truthful
James:
care our Ku-Klux laws failure?
Or our love for the negro played out7Y
To our seeming, it is plain case. 80
far as concerns protecting the poor Afn-
csn, Radicalism IL, according to Its own
showing, an ignominious failure. After
ruling the country at its own sweet will
for over ten years, the datky is no nearer
getting his rights than ever. He has been
made free, has been endowed with civil
rights, and clothed with political fran
chises. Still the work of his emancipa-
ton is terribly incomplete, according to
this Radical South Carolina report.
All that our women reformers demand,
is the ballot. All that the oppressed mil
lions of Great Britain and Ireland crave,
is the ballot. Even the Paris Commun-
list hopes to achieve by the ballot what be
failed to protect with the bsyonet. But
for the negro the ballot seems altogether
insufficient. He votes unquestioned from
the St. Croix to the Rio Grande. He
elects every official in South Carolina, ev-
cry constable, sheriff, magistrate, judge,
legislator, up to the Governor himself.
Every State official is Radical; every Fed
eral official in the State is Radical: and
still the loyal brethren are not protected.
Nor are numbers of any avail. South
Carolina is the one State in which the ne
groes outnumber the whites. Besides,
there is quite q sprinkling of Radical
whites, so that the. Democrats are in q
hopeless minority. And this great numer-
ical msjority quietly permit this pitiful
minority TO hack them into mince-meat!
How riddle this arithmetical paradox
S,nator Morton forbids the idea of infeii
GRITTY as an "old fogy notion" and, in
truth, the inferiority is all on the side of
the whites, when it comes to physical
strength.
Civil rights bills and Ku- Klux bills
seem equally inadequate. We have them
all in full force under a..Radical, negro
loving Administration; still the negro is
unprotected. And troops seem utterly in.
efficient. There are squads Of soldiers scat
tered throughout the State. Yet the SUBJ
committee fails to mention one instance in
which they protected the ''man and broth
er." Their one, solitary recorded achieve
ment was the securing of Christian buri-
al to dead preacher.
We are further told BY this Congress
sional committee that the ''civil authori-
ties are helpless farce and mockery."
But this murderous nockery of civil gov
eminent has never been removed under
the sweeping provisions of the Ku- Klux
law Sin such cases made and provided. "
II 1.-THE of these outrages had been COM
mitted in Kentucky, martial law would
have been forthwith proclaimed and the
State authorities superseded. What ex-
cuse can the Radical Grant, lounging on
Long Branch beach, offer for not en-
forcing the law in South Carolins? Was
the law designed to protect our colored
citizens, or was it TO screen murderously
incompetent Radical Officials? Or, was
there 8 horrible compact between the
candidate for second term aud his South
Carolina partisans, that the murder of
poor negroes should go on unchecked
''for the benefit of the party"
1t is plain case. View it as we may,
Radicalism has failed utterly to protect
the negro. Ali its devious devices of
policy and legislation have come to
nauCht. 1t has failed in its self-ap-
pointed mission. Its 'labor of love-
has been allin vain. If these are the fruits
of Radical supremacy in South Carolina,
every true friend of the blacks must say,
"Let US have no more of it. 1t has re-
duced the negro to state infinitely worse
than slavery"
Evidently the Democracy must sttord
shelter under its ample wings, for these
orphans of the war, if they are not to be
exterminated by Radical incempetents,
tricksters snd story-writer5. We must
save them from their friends. " We
must have Democratic government in the
South which will enforce the laws and
protect all citizens alike. We must have
Democratic Federal administration that
will attend to its business instead of sping
the Imperial idlers of Ems Spa. For the
sake of the negro especially, should the
old-fashioned Democracy be restored to
power. He needs the change sadly; fol-
he has fallen in the hands Of the Philis'
tinPe