The Opelousas courier., 1873-08-09
Partition and Annexation of
Southern States.
From the N. 0. Herald. JULY 25.l


| Among the other desperate remedies sug.
gested for our present unhappy political con
dltlon, and for the still worse fate with which
we are threatened in the subjugation of the
great mass of the intelligent and moral white
citizens OF the State, to the despotic sway of
plundering usurpation, is that referred to by
our correspondent Y. Y. 2.
This is the partition of the State of Louisi
ana between her two neIghbors, Mississippi
and Texas. 1t is believed that such a parti-
tion will alone save the State from an African
| lzation as complete as that which has desolated
the once beautiful and rich islands of the West
Indies. BY combining that portion of Louisi-
ana east OF the Mississippi, to wit the island
OF Orleans and the Florida parishes, with Mis-
| sissippi, the negro majority of that State could
be overcome, whilst Louisiana proper, or that
portion of the State lying west of the Mississippi
joined to Texas, would secure "a like ADVANTAGE
for the white race.
1t is natural that the extreme misery and
peril of our people should incline them to such
desperate resorts. When it is so seriously
advocated and eounseled to remit this State
to the barbarism OF Hayti and the squalor Of
State pride, all heroic associations and attach
ments to our original sovereignty will he
promptly surrendered, to ward off the dire
calamity. .s ~.
If the entire extinction of our independence
as State, and the transfer OF all the powers
Washington will save us from such fate, the
great majority of the people will eheerfully
consent thereto-nay, will rejoice in the
change 1t is already much discussed among
persons who give their thoughts to the sub
ject, whether the abolition of all State lines
in the former slave States, and their cOns0E
idation into one State or province, with "a CEN
tral government to exercise over ali of them
the powers now divided among some ten or
twelve States would not be greater improve
ment of our present condition.
We should thus secure q government in
which the intelligence and virtue of the white
population would dominate the coalition of
the negroes and white plunderers, which has
proved so crushing and desolating to half of
the Southern States. Ii, however, it should
prove impractieable to create so large State,
the idea might be modified by combining States
which, together, would effect an equalization
of the races, and prevent the result SO serious
ly apprehended in Louisiana. Thus, Virginia
and North Carolina might be blended into one
State, Georgia aud South Carolina into an
other, Alabama and East Tennessee, Texas
and Louisiana, while Arkansas might find
safety and relief by merging herself in Mis-
souri,. -r s-..-.
These, though mere projects, will serve to
indicate the profound anxiety and interest
which are beginning TO pervade the white popu-
latiOn of the South. They may be impractical
BILE, and in many respects Objectionable, but
certainly the only means by which the fairest
and richest portion of the South can be saved
from African dospinion will never be deemed
inpraetieable by the white population of this
Republic. We are not prepared to say that
this is the only way or the best method of
preventing this dire result.
That method must, however, be discovered
and investigated 1t is obvious, since the dis
tinet organization of the negroes as race in
one party, against the great body of the white
citizens, and their rejection of all invitations
and propositions for cooperation and joint
action in Political matters, for the common
good, that it has become the great question of
the day aud the hour, what measures shall be
taken, what policy adopted, to secure the
ascendeney, or at least prevent the subjuga-
tion, of the whites of this continent to the
vastly inferior and incapable eolored race.