Middletown transcript., 1874-05-30
The Civil Rights Bill.

The consummatiun Of Yankee malicious
ness and i'll Will toward the people of the
South was reached Oh Saturday morning
last when the United States Senate deliber-
asely passed the Supplementary Civil
Rights bill" introduced into that body by
the late Chas. Summer. That the men
who voted for that measure we're infuenc-
ed, in even the slightest degree, by
heartfelt desire to benefit the negro race
or the country for which they professed-
Iy legislate, no man, woman or child,
white or colored, in America will for
moment believe, and We cannot think there
is an individual in oil the country SO utter
ly lost to all sense Of shame or decency, as
to advocate or sanction the dogmas intend
ed to be forced upon the people by that
bill.
Not content with hasing conferred upon
tho negroes. without waiting for them to
become habtuated to their suddenly ac-
quired freedom much less to understand
the nature and value Of suffrage, all the
political rights which are enjoyed by the
whites, this bill seeks to place them upon
a c'mplete social equality with the whites,
and to force the two races into close and
intimate association in schools, hotels,
theatres, public conveyances of all kinds,
and in fact in every public institution.
The negroes themselves, that is the bet
ter and more respectable portion of them,
object as much to the provisions of this bill
as we do. They never have asked, sought
or wanted social equality with the whites.
They greatly prefer to be left to them
selves. They would a thousand times
rather have their own separate schools and
churches, and do not ask or want to have
their children attend public institutions of
learning with the children of the whites.
But by the provisions of this bill the peo-
pie of the States are not even allowed the
privilege of establishing by law separate
schools in which to educate the children
Of the two races, but all must attend the
same schools. The reason for this as
stated by that wrctched apology for a
senator, Boutwell, of Mass, is that more
thorough and complete equality can be
taught in the schools than elsewhere.
1t cannot be that even the politicians
who have disgraced the records Of the
american Senate with this disgusting en-
actment really approved of its require
ments.
1t has been but few weeks since one Of
the leading Republican journals Of this
State declared most emphatically that the
Republicans Of Delaware we're most un-
dsniably opposed to mixed schools" or
''soeiut equality" and denounced all in
iimations that they could possibly favor such
measures as base aud vile ISLANDERS orig
mated by their opponents for political pur-
poses.
We believe that the editors of that pa
per, when they wrote the article referred
10, expressed their true views and senti
ments in regard to this matter. We Dc
not believe there is single white man il
America in favor of it, and the men who
voted for its passage and those who have
advocated it, had no idea that it coult
possibly effect them or their children, bu
they knew the degradation must fall upor
the children of the poor and Of tho labor
ing classes, of the North and upon al
classes at the South.
Heretofore in their enactments in behal
Of the negro, the majority insCongress hat
the slight, though mean and unprincipled
excuses Of being inhunced by a desire t,
secure the political alliance Of the negroe,
in order to keep themselves in power, bu
in the passage Of this last Act they hav,
not even that excuse, low and mean as
is, for their action. No one of them is s
devoid of common sense as not to kno,
that the passage Of this bill must an
necessarily will drive from their rank
large numbers Of their already few whit
voters, especially in the old slave states
They could. then. have been governed b
but one desire, and that was to thus mucl
more vent their spleen upon and punis
The PROSTATE people Of the South, BY CON
pslIing, the once proud planter and hi
children to commingle in social equalit
with his former slaves.
Such is the character Of the men wh
sit 10 the seats once occupied by statel
msn and patriots, and assume to max
laws for the governance Of the America
people Influenced by no loftier motivs
than those Of the biiterest sectional hate, {
mesnest partissnship, they spend the tim
=. ooactsn0 lawa FIR the derradafion