The New York herald., 1874-09-29
Moses Black Militia-SOund Views OF
Governor Dix.

has been furnished by Governor Moses and
Attorney General Williams. Moses made
application to the President on Friday for
troops to suppress domestic violence in the
town of Edgefeld. The Attorney General
replied on Saturday, informing him that one
company was already there and was deemed
sufficient. The grotesoue absurdity of con-
Tossing that the whole militia of South Caro-
lima is incompetent to cope with local dis
turbance which a single company of federal
soldiers sufices to hold in awe needs no
words to set it forth. 1t is burlesque on
that part of the constitution which declares
that "a well regulated militia being necessary
to the security of free State, the right of the
! people to keep and bear arms shall not be in
! fringed." The South Carolina militia affords
wonderful security to that ''iree State"
when it is confessedly unequal to an exigency
for which one company of the regular army is
ample! But this correspondence has its
sad as well as its ridiculous side. 1t is a
shame and scandal that an American State
Is organized on so false and unsafe
basis that petty local eeealte threatens to
for applying for federal troops that 81 am
powerless to enforce my orders except by the
use Of the inexperienced State militia a
confession that the negro militia is utterly
worthless in a State where the negroes out
number the whites in the proportion of nearly
two to one. BY the last census the white
population of South Carolina was only
2S9, 667 and the negro population was Ais. 814.
And yet Moses quivers with fear and tele-
graphs to Washington for aid against small
local disturbance in a rural town.
We should be slow to cast upon him the
imputation of cowardice. His estimate of the
value Of his negro militia is probably correct.
Nor is it at all surprising that militia COM
posed of ex-slaves is worthless array of Or
ganized imbecility. They have never been &C
customed to the use of arms. They are
cowed by their conscious inferiority to their
white fellow citizens, almost every man of
whom is veteran soldier, trained in the
rough school Of war. The negroes have the
military qualities of an army of sheep called
to confront a small number of lions.
Negro soldiers behaved well enough in
the war, because they were well
drilled before they were put into battle,
and fought in conjunction with supporting
white troops who inspired them with con-
fdence. But raw and undisciplined negro
militia, suddenly called to oppose war-scarred
white veterans, without white regiments ON
their right and left and supporting white
force III their rear, are little better than an
army Of sheep. 1t is not cowardice but
sagacity which forbids Governor Moses to
place the slightest reliance on them.
similar perception of their utter worthlessness
caused Kellogg to act what seemed the part
of poltroon in the recent uprising in Louis
lana. He made the instructive confession
that his government cannot stand day with
out federal propping. When cur fathers
declared that a well regulated militia is the
proper security of free State, they did not
intend to make either themselves or the
militia ridiculous. They had strong faith in
what they said when they made this declara-
ton a part of the constitution. They in
tended to bear their emphatic testimony to
the self-sustaining power of State governments
which are really republican.
BY the theory of republican institutions
they express the will Of majority of the
citizens. They imply that every man who
casts vote is entitled to carry musket, and
that the preponderance of physical strength
goes with q majority of the voters. Supposing
this to be the case, the occasions must be rare
indeed when the government of a State can
| +ci1
obedience to its authority And, in point of
fact, there has never been, in the whole period
OF our history, an insurrection against State
government which was not promptly sup
pressed by the State itself, until the recon-
structed governments of the South were
organized since the war The nearest ap-
proach to federal interference was in the Dorr
rebellion in Rhode Island; but, as Governor
Seward said in his next message to our Legisla-
ture after the overthrow of Dorr: 1.-THE people
of Rhode Island nobly sustained their govern
ment without the aid they had q right to ex-
pect from the federal Executive" But no
application for federal assistance would have
been made in the Rhode Island case if large
proportion of the citizens had not been ex-
/ cluded from the ballot by property qualifca-
ton. The people of the State promptly rectl-
fed this error by adopting new constitution
extending the elective franchise. The previous
| government was weak only because majority
of the voters did not comprise majority of
the people capable of bearing arms
The reconstructed governments of those
Southern States in which the negroes equal or
outnumber the white inhabitants are as un-
stable as government would be in which te-
male suffrage had been forced upon State
against the will of its male citizens. 1t is OBJ
4 vious that such a government could not stand
if controversy should arise in which all the
women were arrayed on one side and nearly
all the men on the other. There might be II