New national era. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1870-1874, 1872-10-03
Paiiia;ien Of tne Au-MinN by the
Golden Age.

We claim for the negro equality before the
law. If he violates the law against a white
man, let him be punished, not for his offense
against a rkite man because of the man being
white, but because he has violated the law
and if a white man violates the law against
black man, the white man should receive
the same punishment as would be inflicted
upon a black man for offending against his
white neighbor. This, we trust, is plain and
to the point. 1t is for this sort Of justice the
Republican party contends, and against the
mob spirit which attacks and maltreats q
whole race for an offense committed by one
Of its number. If black man commits
crime in the South, the chances are that not
he alone is made to suffer for the Caense,
but any number Of colored people in the
neighborhoOd--men, women, and children
arc outraged and punished simply because
they chance to belong to the same race with
the offender.
This wreaking vengeance on a whole race
for the crimes of few, as devilisb and bar
barous as it is, finds in the editor OF the Golden
Age Theodore Tilton) defender in the fol-
lowing language:
" Admit that there are occasional instances
OF injustice and wrong on the part of the
white people of the South toward the negro
population. So there are similar instances
in Philadelphia, Chicago, and New York
We must bear in mind that the white people
of the South often suffer terrible provoeatiOns
from the negroes, of which we know next 10
nothing. The latter are generally ignorant,
often indolent, and sometimes lawless, in
sulting, and violent. They arc intoxicated
with their new-found freedom, and mistake
liberty for license. Even the best of them
are no too good.'
"They are intoxicated with their new
found freedom, and mistake liberty for Ii
cense," says the editor of the Gol1cn Age.
So thought the white people of Savannah
when colored people attempted to ride in the
public street cars of that city; and those
white people, intoxicated with an idea that
black men had no rights that white men were
bound to respect, amused themselves and
proved their superiority and respect for law
and order, by mercilcssly shooting colored
women and children. Colored people in
| the South intoxicated with their freedom,
&C., went diligently to work to obtain
learning, thinking that liberty gave them
the right to learn to read and write,
but according to the editor Of the Golden
Age and the Ku.Klux Klans this must
have been license for it was the terrible
prOvocation' causing many school-hOuses to
be burned, teachers to be shot and ordered
away and whole communities ofcolored people
to be terrorized. "IntoXicated with their new
found freedom" &C., the negroes imagined
that the ballot was given to them to use
according to their own best Judgment, but
this idea of liberty was license as the friends
of the editor of the Golden Age decided BY
their action towards the " freedom ntoxi-
Gated" From one end Of the South to the
other, the friends of the editor of the COLLEEN
Age banded together for the purpose of in
structing the colored people that their idea
of the use of the ballot was an erroneous
one, licentious madness, the remedy for
| which was murder, rapine, and arson. "In-
toXicated by their new-found freedom" the
black men accepted the teachings of the
Declaration of Independence, and began to
act as though they believed that men were
born free and equal, and should have the
right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of hap
piness, this the friends of the editor of the
Golden Age resented by their laws, COMPEL.
ing laboring men TO remain on plantations
and not allowing them to leave, even after
their days WORN was done without permits.
sion from their employees. The freedom
intoxicated'' imagined that they had right
to their own children and wives, but this toe
was lcentious in the eyes of the friends o
the Go'd.a Ige, so these friends took the
children and reduced them to slavery by bind
ing them to masters without the consent an(
against the wishes of the parents outraged
the wives of the colored men and blew ou
the brains Of their freedom intoxicated
husbands if in the madness of their new
found freedom they dared attempt to protect
them.
If the negroes of the South were not law
abiding and law-respccting citizens, as ii
the major part they are, they could point tc
far more terrible prOvocation" in the out
RACES of slavery, the effects of which the,
suffer under to-day, for being lawlcss thar
can the white people for the murder. rapine
and arson perpetrated against whole com
munities of defenseless and inoffensive col
ored people for crimes committed bya few O
their number, and o:tener for no othe,
offensc than being true to their own convic
tons of right. When the editor of the
Golden Age attempts to excuse the Ku-Klu,
OF the south for their outrages upon coloret
people by charging the negroes with provok
ing the outrages by mistaking liberty for Ii
cense, it would be well for that editor to re
call to mind his old time views on the cues
ton of slavery and its evil consequence,
alike to white as well as black men. L
would be well for this same editor to max,
an estimate Of the amount of "terrible provo
cations" to murder, rapne, and incendiarism'
the system Of slavery offered to the blacl
people of the South, and then balance it will
the amount Of foibearancc ana good nature
observed by these same black people, wher
during the rebellion they had the power Cow
ing to the absence of the great number O
white persons in tho rebel army to murde