The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1874-09-17
Hon. Ssessrs. Morton and EEay-
mar(l's interpretation of the Civil
Rights ERiEI.
HAMILTON FISH,
Sec'y of State.

The difference between the Civil Rights
Bill pending in Congress and the law we
have on our statute book in Mississippi,
is the provision in the Congressional bill
in relation to common schools. This
provision, we have said, should not inter-
fere with our present separate school
system, unless the colored people them
selves were dissatisfied with it; and this
we have had no sufficient reason to believe
What they have always claimed is equal
advantages with the whites, and this the
system in force in our State affords them.
1t is measure Of their own, of whose
workings we have heard no complaints
from that quarter; and hence we have
inferred that no attempt will be made to
abandon it-even though the opportunity
will be afforded, which, we trust will not
be, in the passage Of the Congressional
measure-a scheme promising no good,
but immense evil in its tendency to
precipitate a race conflict.
We have said, however, that the meas
ure would be operative necessarily in the
Northern communities where the colored
population is too sparse to admit of sepa-
rate schools and colleges as we have them
in Mississippi. We observe that this
construction is placed on the measure by
the highest Republican authorities
Senator Morton, of Indiana, who, next
to the President, is the accredited mouth
piece Of his party; and Representative
Maynard, of Tennessee, who championed
the bill in the House of Representatives.
Nay; more. These accredited Radicals
say that if " colored children receive an
g equal benefit of the common school fund
g of State, it is compliance with the
g Civil Rights Bill, and the control of
g schools, with the local officers policy
% as at present" That they do receive
" an equal benefit in Mississippi, and
we believe the same may be said of the
other Southern where the
colored population is numerous-there
has been no question. According to
Senator Morton, therefore, in these States
the conditions of the bill as to public
schools, are already complied with; but
not in his own and other States, where no
adequate provision for the education of
the blacks is provided. Naturally, the |
question comes up, why do not those States
take the matter in hand if it is local
affair, and attend to it without Congress |
siOnal action?
But the point we are now considering |
is the applicability of the measure to our
own communities-and the light thrown
upon it by the exposition of its prominent
advocates. Here is the language of Sen
ator Morton in his recent Terre Haute
speech, which, by the way, has been quoted
with appreciation by the entire Republican
press of the country:
The passage of the Civil Rights bill by
The Senate is made the occasion ola special
attack against Senator Pratt and myself.
They think to make few votes by APP
oealing to the prejudices and fears of the
white people about mixed schools. In
owns and communities where the children
# each color are numerous enough to be
ormed into separate schools, there will
,e no trouble on the subject, and there
las not been. But, in districts sparsely
,opulated, or neighborhoods in which
here are few colored children, and where t
here proportion of the school fund would ]
e wholly insufficient to maintain separate I
chools, and their parents are not able to t
1aintain private schools for them, if they n
re not admitted into the public schools
hey must grow up in ignorance and p
Tithout education. And what harm
iould these children do in the public il
thools They would interrupt nobody, +.
1ough in many places they would be the Il
ictims of insult and oppression. The a
ian who would say that, under any cir L
umstances, these colored children must 3.
row up without education, to be poor, q
,norant, helpless, and, perhaps, vicious. A