Oxford Democrat. [volume] (Paris, Me.) 1833-1933, 1871-11-07


Never was such disappointment. The
spectacle has not been uncommon in the
South of negro who paid Difference
to the white man scarcely less than he
had shown in the days of slavery, who
possibly yet said "Mas'r." who did his
work in all humility and with all subiec-
ton. yet going openly 10 the polls and
casting his vote there against the party of
his employer. Such an instance of self
respect and moral courage is 10 be ad-
mired, even by those against whom 1t
acts. A distinguished Virginia politician
recently assured the writer that he had
not known of one single instance in the
State of negro selling his vote for
money; and yet the same gentleman re.
membered, in the days of the old hust-
ings, not unfrequently seeing white
man approach knot Of politicians, cay
ing with the greatest composure. Gem
men, whatll you give me for my vote ?"
and half. dollar or pint OF whiskey
generally concluded the bargain. In the
iury.box tho virtue and fidelity of the
negro are remarkable, to the extent that
it has already been observed that the
worst negro criminals prefer to be tried
by white juries rather than by peers of
their own color. In fine, in most of the
conduct of the negro il TO be perceived
the evidence of his deep sense OF being
on probation, q condition in which much
will be exactcd of him by either the hos
tility or the incredulity of criticism, and
in which he can justify himself only by
the most undoubted proofs of his WORTH
ness; and indeed it is this visible inn
preston upon the negro, rs OF one
watched. that affords the best assurance
Of his continued improvement and pro-
gress."
He deyotes his concluding thoughts to
his eloquence, of which he gives some
good specimens. One OF them hearing
OF Esau's selling his birtlright for mess
of pottage, said he would never sell his
birthright for nesL OF partridgcs. He
thinks that "his admitted gifts of imagin.
alton. his extraordinary faculty of lam
guage. his delight in rhetorical exercise,
afford reasou to believe that there may
yet be in reserve development of negro
character to astonish the world, and to
confer upon him an interest new and al
together romantic"
Hc says his forte is not rant, but pa.
thetic; "his fayorite figure is the simplest
one, the allegory. He shows that his
subject masters him, not he his subject;
the vital difference between the true
orator and the false. He says
1.-The intense realization of what he
says is the peculiarly of the negro's
speech, rather than any number or mode
of figures of speech and in this respect
it must be insisted that his eloquence is
of the purest and severest school,
His faculty of illusion is what strikes one
most in observing the negro speaker He
seems able to transport himself into the
scene he describes, or into the emotion
he has sumnIoned and it is this faculty
which, beyond all accomplishments of
language and structures of art, is simply
and surprisingly called elOquence. The
startling eyes. looking over and beyond
his audience; the unheeded perspiration
of the brow the large, clumsy hands.
trembling with emotion, and raining
down from the air in which they are
raised an mpalpable influence, attest
that the negro speaker is feeling what he
says, when he is in the full tide of exhor-
tation, when, perchance, he sees his
favorite religious phantasm, the old ship
Of Zion,' far away on the stormy waves,
or sings, as of y longing spectator. the
hymn of Swing low, Chariot, one OF
his characteristic visions of the sky. AIT
might take its lessons from many OF the
rude but impassioned scenes that are TO
be found in negro Westinghouse and
to study the black man MS an orator is an
employment that remains to reward the
adventure of tho scholar in new and
unbcaten path OF discovery.
"Surely not in the least of the roman
ces attaching to the negro in his recent
introduction TO the interest and curiosity
of the world, is that in what has hereto.
fore been considered the unsightly and
unpromising son of Africa may yet be
found the type of being long lost in
aesthetic history-a true orator. Who
knows but that the forest born Demos
themes may yet prove to be black manP"
To see leader in jeff Davis's govern
ment avow this, in half dozen years
after the nation he "creatod" had ceased
to be, is sudden conversion, nigh TO
the marvellous. We have always said
the negro would find his best friends yet
among his former masters, as their pre-
judices were less, but we hardly expected
so public conversion so soon.
"A reader who thinks she has found
the very incest breakfast in the world,
tells how to make it. 1t is Indian corn
1 L I.lla,rr 0inn