Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1874-09-03
THE COLOR LINE.

In Alabama and in Louisiana the color
line has been sharply drawn. The Democrats
or Conservatives, there and elsewhere, declare
that they have no thought of encroaching
upon the civil rights of the colored people, or
of limiting their public privileges, and it is
not to be doubted that this is said in all sim
cerity. Nevertheless, the direct and practi-
cal effect of the formation of confessedly
white mans party is to array the whites, as
whites, against the colored people, as colored
people; and this course, while it may, in ap-
pealing to the instinct of race, ensure the
whites temporary triumph, in States where
the blacks are in the minority, will, we firmly
believe end in disaster to the country, be-
cause it will render impossible that harmo-
nious cooperation of blacks with whites which
can only grow out of mutual forbearance, and
a steady regard by the once race for the min
gled force and frailty of the other.
The faults of the negroes are not attributa-
bic to the color of their skin. Those people
are not ignorant or vicious merely because
they are black. The white man is not intel
ligent and far-sighted merely because he is
white. In the beginning the white race stood
on higher plane than the black race, and
the relative difference will be maintained to
the end of time. But it must not be forgot
ten that the negroes, however ignorant, were
docile and industrious so long as they were
controlled by honest, high-minded white men,
and that their venality in act and their vio-
lence in word began only when they, as eman-
cipated slaves, became the thralls of unprin-
cipled white adventures and of loud.mouthed
black demagogues. And history shows that
the white race, when all restraint is suddenly
taken away, are capable of the most horrible
excesses. Witness the orgies of the Commu-
nards, short two years ago. 1t is unneces-
sary to multiply examples. No impartial and
thoughtful observer, no man who holds that
justice is higher and nobler than prejudice
and passion, can, with the events of the past
decade staring him in the face, find wisdom
and lasting success in the doctrine that the
whites must, as such, be always right, and the
blacks, as such, be always wrong. And,
whatever may be done in other States this
cannot be made the rule Of action in South
Carolina, unless the white citizens stand ready
to give the lie to the declarations and profes-
sions of their mass meetings and conventions,
assented to and acted upon, since the very
first stages of Southern reconstruction.
There is, in truth, only one course which
can consistently be taken, and that is to meas
ure the negro by the standard by which the
white man is measured, and by none other.
When he violates the law he must be punish
ed. When candidate for Office, it must be
asked whether he is honest and intelligent, and
otherwise capable of filling that Office with
credit to himself and benefit to the public.
There are few, if any, colored men who are
fitted for the higher Offices in State; but, in
considering the claims Of colored man to
any office, the only test applied to him should
be the test which, in like cases, is applied to
white candidate That is where South Car
olina stands to-day, except by the authorita.
tive voice Of her people.
We fear black ignorance, not black intelli.
gence. We fear black corruption, not black
integrity Of life. We fear black prejudice
and passion, not the enlightenment which
thought and study give. And if there be in
South Carolina only one colored man in sixty
who is intelligent, and enlightened, and pure,
that one man should be ranged side by side
with white men of equal intelligence and pur-
ty in every contest for good government, and
in every fight against wrong-doing.
For the colored men who are depraved and
ueoaseu we nave PITY alone, ouI 1or those "no
have risen above the normal level of their
race and are rising still, we have nothing but
kindness, thoughtfulness and respect. The
success Of what is called white mans party
is incompatible with the active application of
this principle, and because it excludes and
proscribes the colored man for the sole reason
that he is black or brown, we hold such party
to be as politically inexpedent as it is moral
ly wrong. Charleston Ne,ps and Courier