The Ouachita telegraph. [volume] (Monroe, La.) 1865-1889, 1874-09-11
JEFFERSON DAVIS AND THE NEGRO.

| JEFEERSON DAVIS AND TIE NEGKOs
The feeling of the resident white
population of the South to the negro
was happily described by Jefferson
Davis in II recent meeting held II Menu
phis to denounce the midnight slaugh-
ter of the sixteen negroes at Trenton,
Tennessee. Mr.. Davis said:
Friends and countrymen, you have
assembled tonight not for tho hare pur-
pose OF giving that expression which
humanity demands, but YOU have as
semblcd for a holier duty. 1t is what
you owe to yourselves; what YOU owe
to your posterity what you owe to tho
living; what you owe to the gallant
dead who died fighting for the sacred
cause of Southern Independence. And
you men of Polk, of Grundy, OF Glib
son, beware that you do not dishonor
the dead nor tarnish the living. You
are not here to express your horror of u
particular crime. 1t is II crime to he
punished, and to be punished as 1t de-
serves, Il crime that appeals to the oih-
GERS of the law that they will do their
duty. You have come hero to appeal
to tho country abroad that yon are not
Il race Of assassins; that you don't
wear masks, and that in asserting your
rights that you Will go forward to tho
end of your lives never wearing u
mask nor ever blackening your face.
{ Applause. l was the other day par
ticuiarly struck ut reading the testimo-
ny of II negro before one OF those in-
vcstigatng committees in South Caro-
lima. lie WAS asked If he knew Wade
Hampton. oh, yes, they had been
raised together from childhood. Did
ln1 1,nIt hnf "a NN-,Ns rsNl III
of those Ku-KiuN outrages: No, he
did not. Why: "Bocause,' said tho
negro, s.if Mussa Wade Hampton had
had anything to do with these men, 1t
would have been the white men that
hc would have been after and not the
negroes" Applause. The southern
men are the only friends tho negro has
lit amy part OF the world. 1t becomes
us to be thcir friends. Every Southern
MANS memory runs back to the good
old black woman who nursctt him in
his infancy, and then to the boy who
hunted and nshcu with him, and the
man who learned him to ride. All
remember with what JOY and manifcs-
tations of love tho nurse welcomed
him back homo after he had reached
manhood. While these memories clus-
ter around him he can never forget
them when they stood in those relations
which l believe God intended that
they should occupy. If these relations
have been disturbed, it has been by
those inccndiaricS who have come in
among us only to stir up strife. 1t
now rests with you to show to tho
world that you are incapable Of secret
crime; that you hate the men who
wear the mask or black the face, and
that whatever is necessary for tho pub
lie peace that you will do in an open
manner, with the visor raised and tho
helmet open. Applause. The color
cd people require the white man to
provide for and look after them now us
much rs they ever did. Now, there
are men who think that, in the event
of II war of races, the blacks would be
extcrminatcd and that we would then
have Il happy and roseate future. 1
have no sympathy with those men.
The negroes were my friends In tho
oldcn time, and took care of our wives
and children and homes in the time of
war. They brought this grand Mis-
sis5ippi Valley into cultivation, and
arc the only ones, j think, that can or
will hc ever able to successfully culti-
vatc it. tAppiause. But don't in
tend to touch upon II question upon
which every man has already formed
an opinion. j have no feeling against
the colorcd men. The only indignu-
ton which / feel is against those white
men who have carried them into tho
position which they now occupy. Let
It's have our vengeance against them,
not against the poor blacks. AI-
plausc.