New national era. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1870-1874, 1873-09-25

murder are being committed in various see.
tons OF the country, especially in Some parts
OF Indiana, and that, too, with IMMUNITY, OF
which the public knows little, and the press
makes no account. From the very period
when these deeds Of slaughter and of death
were perpetrated, even to the present time,
black men have scarcely ever found redress.
Indeed, so tardy have been the authorities
OF Indiana in furnishing these guilty offenders
that colored men felt themselves more safe
in the land of their oppressors than with the
man-hating outlaws of Hoosierdom.
As late as in the summer of the year, when
the guerrilla Morgan invaded that State,
black men were shot down, massacred, and
murdered by rebel-sympathizers, by men who
have passed unpublished, and to-day are
looked upon as being very fair citizens. All
this was done in the very spirit Of that Dem
ocratic maxim, ''that black men had no
rights which white men were bound to re-
spect.' So little has been the mercy shown
the comparison felt, that it seems as though
Justice had fled to british beast and men
had lost their reason"
Never, to my latest memory, shall forget
the dark and fearful incidents attending the
murder of Walt Green. Being man of high
moral daring, he was not to be intimdated
though bad men prowled around with deadly
designs. Lost Creek settlement, Tigo county,
which is inhabited by some of the most
wealthy colored men in the West, was threat
encd by band of desperadoes. Green was
not the man to submit tamely to unprovoked
in uries and wrongs, he was not the man to
compromise honor and manhood; on the
contrary, he confronted his assailants, defied
them, and held them at bay under cover of
night these madmen repaired to the same
place and secreted themselves in the woods,
near the house Of Green, till the dawn ofmorn-
ing, till the honest toiler Of the field should
resume his labors. An unusual sound, the
sudden report of gun was heard, and Green,
brave and undaunted man, was smtten to
the earth lifeless corpse, by the hand of
the assassin s weapon. What did the authori.
ties do about this shameful crime Not white
man went forward in defence of outraged
humanity; none plead for the majesty of the
law. Not even an inquest was granted.
The body of the murdered man was buried
without any judicial investigation; and never,
even to this time, has the matter had hear
ing in a court of justice.
Last winter a colored man was arrested on
the mere suspicion of penal oiiense. He
uroS trio nd tod h,4 q n
of his release, he was butchered in open day
in the presence of those who had established
his innocence. Dark and revolving as was
this tragedy, nothing-nothmy has yet been
done in the courts of Indiana to appease the
demands of the law.
The question is readily solved, when it is
known that this murdered man was shrewd
politician, and that the Republican party
had realized efficient services from his
labors.
Even now a colored man is confined in the
of that State for having married
a woman whose complexion is unlike his
own. The court, which inflicted this pun
ishment, iustifies itself in this barbarous act
by an appeal to one of the 'black laws" of
the State established more than thirty years
ago, and which the judge decides has not
been repealed by the fifteenth amendment.
Are the laws of the General Government to
be thus ignored and defied by the people of
Indiana? l repeat it, the people Of Indiana;
for if these acts of cruelty are to be tolerated,
apd official mon vbo oro tho 1onoO;tor;oO of
the law, the representatives of the people,
take no measures to punish criminal offend
ers, then are the people themselves not only
responsible for, but guilty, guilty of crimes.
Nay, more they become aiders and abetters
in crimes and misdemeanors, and to the high
court Of the nation they stand amenable. 1t
matters little what be the political sentiment
of the State when the Legislature and the
courts turn q deaf ear to the demands of hui
manity crying and bleeding, and beseeching
the protection of the law.
Does Indiana show any more the spirit of
loyalty than South Carolina to-day? Is the
Executive head of that State any less than
an enemy to the national laws, when these
acts Of villainy are committed, and nothing
is done to punish the violators? Remem-
bering the great sacrifice of blood and treas
ure remembering what it cost to establish
on this continent perpetual and impartial
liberty, just and inmutable laws, and a free
Constitution, the nation cannot pass these
things by unnoticed; it cannot compromise
its honor it cannot belle ITSELF For it is
now agreed that our Government ia its az
gregate as well as in its separate parts is
Republic Of the people, and no State can be
Republican unless all of its citizens, of what
ever race or color, can share the full protec-
ton of the Government. Admitting that
the laws in theory are just, that ample pro-
vision is made for the protection of every
citizen, that every man is the equal of an
other before the law, what are laws and
statutes, courts and governments, without a
just application Of those principles where the
law, in the language Of Cicero, becomes the
minister Of God to man for good To make
the national law effective, to make it a grand
and fearful power wherever the broad lrgis
Of the Constitution may extend, Congress
should see that in all the States of the Union,
in all the courts and Legislatures of the
several States, there shall be no conflict in
the theory and execution Of the law that