The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1874-10-08

were the protection of thieves their only
safety. When we contemplate the part
the coiored people have played in the
recent history of the Southern States, we
| lind them rather to be pitied than TO be
condemned. That they should have fall
len under the control of reckless and de-
signing men, when, ignorant as centuries
OF slavery had left them, they entered
upon the exercise of political rights, is
by no means astonishing, especially when
we consider that the Southern whites,
their late masters, at first maintained an
attitude Of hostility to their new rights,
while some of those most designing friends
appeared in the character of federal
office holders, Il character c1rrying with
it an authority which the colored people
We're wont to look upon as the very
source Of their liberty Neither is it
surprising that the bad example of such
leaders should have had corrupting infu-
ence upon so impressionable class of fol-
lowers
While thus every fair minded man will
Judge the doings of the colored people
themselves with charity, no measure of
condemnation can be too severe
for those who made of the ignorant and
credulous multitude tool in their schemes
of rapacity.
WHAT THE COLoRED PEOPLE NEED
above all things for their own security
and welfare is a good understanding with
their white neighbors. Had they, when
they became a power in the political
field, been led by conscientious and wise
men, to cast their votes for good govern
ment, and thus to promote the common
interests of both races, that good under
standing with their white neighbo1s
would not long have been wanting. But
what characters did assume the leader
ship? Men who assiduously persuaded
the negroes that their only safety was in
4 strict organization as a race against the
Southern whites, and in blind obedience
to the behests Of their commanders; men
who used that organization only to raise
themselves to power, and who used that
power for the spoliation of the people,
men who, in many cases, after having
filled their pockets with spoil, sneaked off
to a place of safety, leaving behind the
poor tools Of their iniquity as victims to
the evaporation of plundered and out
ragged communities.
Truly, there never were professions Of
affection and solicitude more damnablv
treacherous than those lavished by such
men upon the negroes of the South. To
place the negroes of the South in the
attitude of organized partisan supporters,
of corruption and robbery against the
whites was the blacklist crime that could
he committed against the colored race.
And | affirm that the men who did it,
the carpet-baggers and plunderers, have
been and are the cruelest, the most treach-
erous, the most dastardly enemies the
colored people ever had since their eman-
eipation.
In this connection a word on the
SUPPLEMENTARY CIVIL RIGHTS BILL.
That measure was brought forward and
pressed by the dearest friend | ever had
among the public men of Americas
man whose memory | shall never cease
to cherish and revere. This measure,
however, | could not give my support
Nobody knows better than / do that it
sprung from the purest motives, a rare
sincerity of generous impulse, and high
patriotic inspirations. But it was based
upon a theory of constitutions power, and
upon views Of policy, upon which my
friend and had for years been agreed to
disagree.
In few words will state my opinions
on the bill Those who have observed
my utterances on the questions Of consti-
tutional power, such as were involved,
for instance, the Ku-KluX act, need not
be told that ! must consider the civil
rights bill as transgressing the limits with
which the constitution pledges the com
potency of the National Government,
and as encroaching upon the sphere
of State authority. | will not tonight
tire YOU with a restatement of principles
which I have frequently discussed.
But the civil rights bill, if made a law,
would have other effects which its origin
ator did certainly not design it to have
effects iniuriously touching the interests
of the colored people themselves.
1t has been said that the enact
ment of that bill would be calculated to
BREAK UP THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS
in several of the Southern States. My
observation and reflection convince me
that this apprehension is we'll grounded. |
And nobody would be greater sufferer
than the c3ored people; for nothing can /
he more important to them than that, |
issuing as they do from a state Of degre- |
dation and ignorance, an efficient system |
of public school instruction should put !
them on the road Of progressive
Anything injurious
" affecting such system must
therefore be gravely injurious to them.
1t is well known that a large MAORI
itv of the white people of those States, /
even large majority Of those who are I
sincerely anxious to secure to the colored /
children the largest possible advantage OF
education in separate establishments, still
are we're strongly, nay, violently, opposed 1
to any law which, like the civil rights
bill. would force admission of colored
children together with white children in
the same school rooms That opposition
EXISTS. and we have to deal with 1t rs a
fact. Try to enforce, under such cir
cumstances. the system Of mixed schools, I
and what will be tne result? The old
prejudice against system of public IN
struction to be supported by taxation, as
It still exists in the States in question,
will at once find itself powerfully re-
inforced. and t. an attack so strengthened I
AGAINST a defense in the same measure
weakened, it is most probable that the
systems cf instruction, laboriously built t
no. viii suceumb. At any rate they will
be interrupted for disastrously long Pc
Rod.
There is scarcely greater misfortune
conceivable that could befall those COM
munities. But what would especially
the colored people have gained Now
thew have at least their separate schools
at the public expense, as part of the