Beaufort Republican. [volume] (Beaufort, S.C.) 1871-1873, 1872-01-04
BEAUFORT S. c. THURSDAY, JANUARY 4, 1872.

in the same railroad car with us; and if
we both travel on one steamboat, you
must not enter the cabin' It is not by
the victors in our late struggle, but by the
vanquished-it is not by the dominant
party in these States, but by the political
minority-that these irritating distinctions
and exclusions are insisted on. Why will
not Mr.. Blair raise his voice against them?
-"Ah! but there are uncomfortable
prejudices of race and color"
No, there are not. That very negro
whom you exclude from steamboat cabin
may enter as white mans servant with
out a whisper of remonstrance. Nobody
objects to negroes per Sc; it is their free
dom, their legal equality, that has so rank
a smell-not their bodies.
". We are tempted to recapitulate
some of the unjust, invidious legal distinc-
tions and degradations founded on color
hat were enacted into State laws by Mr..
Blair's southern people" when clothed
with power by Andrew Johnson. We will
not, however, since we trust Mr.. Blair
condemns them as heartily as we do. But
consider the fact that Gov. Leslie of Ken
lucky Ia State never ruled for an hour by
either carpet-baggers or negroes) is con-
strained to urge his legislature, in this
seventh year after Emancipation, to let
the colored citizens of that State testify in
their courts, and to call for stringent en-
actments for the suppression of Lynch
law" outrages-all of them, as we all
know, having whites for their authors and
blacks for their victims. And here comes
Gov. Walker of Viginia-a genuine New
Departure man, born in the North, and
an honest advocate of legal equality, uni
versal education, and all that, who nobly
testifes to truths that Virginia was slow
to learn.
And yet Gov. Walker is forced by the
prejudices of Mr.. Blair's "Southern peo-
ple' to stultify himself as follows:
"The eolored people Of our State are,
equally with the white, clothed with the
elective franchise In order that they
may intelligently exercise that right, the
opportunity for education should, and
under our Constitution must, be afforded
them. This cannot, however, be accom-
plished by any system of mixed schools.
Each race must be provided for separate
ly. have in years past, and under the
most favorable circumstances, witnessed
fair and impartial trial of the expert
ment, and it proved an utter failure. The
true interests of the colored people them
selves demand that they should be pro-
vided with separate schools"
Now, we have not shadow of objec-
tion to separate schools'' in cities and
wherever a dense population renders their
support practicable; but nine-tenths ofthe
area of Virginia is unable, and must for a
long period remain unable, to support two
sets of common schools. To require
southern people" such counties as Giles,
Bland, and forty more that have hardly
so many inhabitants as square miles, to
support adequate common schools for
white, and then another set for colored
children, who will not average ten to a
large school district, is to require what
they will not, cannot do; the cost would
be too great. We, then, having attended
the same school with colored children, sat
on the same bench, studied from the same
books, and recited in the same classes,
without receiving particle of damage,
protest against the assumption that
schools must inexorably be separate, as
inhuman, unchristian, and disgrace to
the XIXth Century. 1t amounts in effect
to this-a large portion of the poorer chill
dren, and especially Of the blacks, shall
have no education at all.
Mr.. Blair! we want to help arrest and
punish the iniquities and robberies of
carpet-bag predominance at the South. 1t
is full of rottenness and rascality. But the
inevitable first step to this end is peace be-
tween the mansion and the cottage, The
honest landholders and the honest cult
vators. of the South must strike hands in
a candid, hearty union against rapacity
and frasd. You, Mr.. Blair, ought not to
stand in the way of this; but you do. Tell
those you can influence to make peace
with the blacks-to denounce and exc
! crate all Ku.KluX outrages. no longer