New national era. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1870-1874, 1872-09-05
Reimbursement.
From the Chicago In,sr-ocean. !

| No candid Republican, whether black Oh
white, can contemplate these facts without {
feeling comprehension lest the ultimate YER
dict of the country and Of history may be
that emancipation, so gloriously labored 70,
and so dearly bought, has been, by reason o.
the ignorance of the emancipated class, in.
dustrially failure.'
No humanitarian Qualifications can be kept
up over an event which lessons the aggregate
Southern States, and annually consigns new
plantations to swamp and new fields to
But the most important fact to the black
man is, that in the Liberal States emancipa.
ton is q success, while in the carpet-bag
States its failure is bringing on the blacks the
stigma of being unfit for freedom Chicago
TSJune.
The article from which the above extracts
are taken undertakes to show that States
where the black population is majority, or
approximatcs in numbers to the white popri-
lation, emancipation has proved failure
that the area of land cultivated is gradually
| decreasing, and all the material interests OF
such States are on the decline.
The Tribune repeats the arguments oil
Southern congressman prior to 1850, citing
| the result of the abolition of slavery in the
pable of supporting themselves in state OF
freedom, and the logical conclusion from the
argument of that journal is, that it believes
it to be an economic necessity 10 rc-enslave
the lately emancipatcd blacks. This is the
old argument of the slave oligarchy, and the
Tribune rehashes it, citing South Carolina and
Louisiana, and declaring that ''no facts in
the history of Jamaica or British Guinea show
more startling decline of productive indus
try after emancipation" than those States.
The article in question has an appearance of
great righteousness, declaring that 1.-THE
Ku-Klux only rage in those States where car
pet-baggers prevail" leaving it to be inferred
that the negroes are themselves the cause of
all the outrages of the Ku-Klux Klans. But
the fact is that the rebel Democracy, in
States where the white population is largely
in excess of the colOred population, are salts
fled that they can in time reduce the negro to
some sort of servile condition, if not to actual
slavery, by means of rcpressive laws, and
hence act moro cautiously, while in South
Carolina, and States of its class, the Ku-Klux
klans have been organized for the express
purpose of reducing the negro population, by
assassination, to point where it can be out
voted. These disturbances of the murderous
Klans have been so great as to produce q
reign of terror which has brought about the
very results chrOnicled by the Tribune, and
now, with meanness worthy of the most
pronounced Southern rebel Democrat, after
having eXoncrated the Ku-Klux from blame,
it turns upon the negro and charges him with
being unfit for freedom"
Inc Tribune "apprehends" that "eman-
cipation may prove failure by reason of the
ignorance of the emancipated class" and
says, mo humanitarian Qualifications can
be kept up over an event which lessons the
aggregate wealth, industry, and self-relance
OF the Southern States" Every STAKEHOLDER
always apprehended" the same thing and
every cx-slaveholder now looks forward
greedily to the time when the "verdict of the
country" shall be that emancipation is a
failure so that he may be permitted to roam
through the land, and re-collect and whip
his former slaves into line, and lash them
into new habits of industry, and thus reclaim
his waste" plantations and swamps into
fields of waving grain and cotton. 1t is no
very surprising fact that fields have gone to
waste in the few States where the Ku-Klux
klans have, in three years, murdered 1000
negroes. Twenty-three thousand murders
committed in the few States containing an
excess of negro population are no very pow
erful incentives to industry. To an anxious
inquirer after truth this wholesale assassina-
ton would furnish ample explanation of the
reduced area of cultivated lands. When
the klans cease tomurder, negroes will be
able to resume work, and the area of cult
waited lands will begin to increase. The
sooner the eX-slaycholders cease puzzllng
their wits about the failure of emancipa-
tion," the sooner cotton will begin to grow
in the waste places of South Carolina. If
they had devoted their attention to the cul-
tivation Of cotton and rice from the day of
the surrender of Lee, as assiduously as they
did to the murder of poor, innocent, ignorant
negroes, they would now look upon more
acres of cultivated fields than they ever had
in the palmiest days of human chattelism.
Let no eX-slaveholder take any comfort or
build up any hopes on the strength of the
7ribune's "apprehensions" that emancpa-
ton will prove a failure" They are no
better founded than the prayer of Horace
Greeley for the time to come when the names
of Lee and Stonewall Jackson will be revered
by the American people equally with those
of Grant and Sherman. So long as the Union
lasts every man who turned traitor to it, no
matter what his motives were, will be branded
as such in history, and regarded rs such by
his fellow countrymen and their descendants
to the latest generation. And as to eman
cipation, it was not inausurated and carried
out as an industrial or economic measure.
These were altogether secondary consldera-
tons, and the best thing the South can do is
to abandon all hope of ever being set right
by history Or the American people, accept
the situation, so to work, and the industrial
question will speedily settle itself. And the
best thing the Tribune can do is to nurse its
"apprehensions lest emancipation shall prove
n failure" privately, within its corporate
breast. The North don't want to read or
listen to such reactlonary nonsense, and
Southern Democratic journals, like the Cau-
caSsian, are not afraid to enunciate the same
sentiments much more emphatically than the
Tribune dare do in its present stage.
Congressman GOIsas1ay 80 tlas