The Indiana State sentinel. [volume] (Indianapolis) 1868-1895, 1874-08-25
CONDITION OF THE SOUTH.
A DOOMED RACE.

sotJTH-A COMPARISON OF HIS F1GHTSNG
QUALITIES WITH THE WHITE MAN's-THE
CAUSES OF DETERIORATION AND POSSIBLE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS POPULAR oPPoSI-
TIoN TO THE CIVIL RIGHTS BILL. IS,
The correspondent of the Cincinnati COM
mercial on tour of observation through the
Southern States, writes thus concerning the
present condition of the negro in the South,
and of the agitation on the civil rights bill:
/ have never thought until recently that the
extinction Of the negroes in the South was a
QUESTION of time. had thought that they
would show a small increase from
year TO year, or at least hold their
own. 1 think so no longer, but be-
lieve that the census of 1880 will show a
startling decrease in the number of negroes
in the South--a decrease which will plainly
point to their ultimate extinction. It will
be long time, but only question of time.
Northern people have little idea of the num-
Der ofnegroes who meet violent deathsin the
South each year. Especially are New
England congressman ignorant on this
subject, or they would not insist upon
| forcing the unfortunate blacks into the
jaws of death by the enactment of civil
rights bills. / am not speaking of things
| as thew should be, bnt as they are. 1t is i'm
possible for the Southern whites and blacks
| to live together under the enforced terms
of the civil rights bill. One race or the
other will have to go to the wall, if that
measure becomes a law, and is enforced in
the spirit in which it is enacted. l say
this in sadness, and with a deep sense of
shame for my race, but candor compels
me to pen the statement after care
| ful investigation of the bearings of
Southern sentiment. Either the law will
have to be a dead letter or the negroes will
be dead negroes. / see no middle ground.
There will be no war of races, but there will
be local fracases, and the negroes will fall
one by one. In all my experience in the
South, L never knew a fracas between the
| men of each race but what, if anybody was
killed, it was a negro. tits almost invariably
so. And let me warn you against believing
the accounts you see in Southern papers of
riots and fights in which negroes are in
volved. Always these accounts blame
the negroes for beginning. The negroes
never begin difficulty in the sense in which
the Southern accounts charge them. They
are peaceable, docile race, far, tar more
than our own. A negro will stand ten times
more maltreatmsnt without resentment
than Will white man, and especially
Southern white man. The NEGRO mobs"
that we read of in the Southern papers are
more often myths than otherwise. The sense
of injury would be powerful, indeed, that
would induce the negroes to form mob
and attack the whites. They never make
an attack. Whenever there is fight
| the negroes are upon the defensive, and
whenever anybody is killed, it is a negro or
negroes. They feel their inferiorify and
know that they must go to the wall if a
bloody issue is made, and making that issue
is the last thing they will do. In the late
Somerville (Tenn.) fight, we are told that
when the shooting commenced "the negroes
rapidly left town, it was though, for rein
forcements." Anyone who is acquainted
with the negro character knows very well
that they cleft town" not for reinforcements,
but to
PREVENT BEING SHOT.
The negroes do not want to fight the whites;
they could hardly te brought up to the
want to fight the negroes, but they will do
| it before they will submit to "nigger
| equality" as they call it. There are mapv
bad negroes, TO be sure, but not as MANY a.
| bad white men. Forty-nine out of 30
negroes re,at heart, good. They do not want
tumult, or contention, or race bitterness or
conflict. They want to live in peace with the
whites, both for the sake of peace itself and
| from a knowledge that a race conflict means
death to them. How many times / have
heard these peaceable, quiet well meaning
negroes lament in the bitterness of their
hearts the conduct of the 'bad niggersn who
would insist in forcing themselves where no.
| wanted, and thus engender ill-feeling, if not
open violence, in which all suffer alike. /
negroes understood the civil rights bill thew
would be against it. But they are led around
by bell-wethers, one bell-wether to about
every hundred negroes, and made to appear
to be for 1t, when in fact the great bulk of
them don't know nor care anything about
it.. a Georgia planter told me that he had
thirty-hve negroes on his place, ana not
more than three knew anything about the
civil rights bill; that the rest are totally
ignorant OF it, and Indifferent on the sub
ject. They very seldom lett the plantation,
never Travelled, and the bill could be no pos
sible benefit to them. Upon election days
they voted such tickets as the radical
bell-wethers gave them, and with that
their knowledge of outside affairs began
and ended. For the interest Of the great
mass ofthe negroes. who are ignorant of any
civil design, and who only want to be al
lowed to live in peace with the whites, /
hope and trust and pray that the civil
for the white men / am interested; / care
nothing for them in this connection. For
ZOO years they have demonstrated capaci-
ty to take care of themselves in any and all
emergencses-a capacity that the negroes are
singularly wanting in. In every conflict
with other races they always come out on
top, whether right or wrong. The justice
of the matter seems TO have little weight
in its final decision where white men are in
terested on one side, and those of another
color on the otEer. The negroes are in the
hrst Place an inferior race, and to this ma
tural inferiority must be added the
effects of 1000 years of barbarism and
heathenism in Africa, and 200 years
of abject slavery in America. To take them
in this condition and attempt to place them
upon the plane of equality ththe first race
of the world must result in failure. If it re-
suits in nothing more than simple failure,
we ought to be abundantly satisfied. But
fear so great folly will bring bitter fruits,
fruits not only destructive TO the peace of
the South. but dangerous to American liberty
| itself. If this government is ever destroyed,
| it will not be by force from without, but
from turmoil within, and the central figure
OF that turmoil will be the negro. The
clouds are already in the sky; whether they
bring storm, no man can tell. During the
short time / was in Atlanta, Ca, learned