The Cambria freeman. [volume] (Ebensburg, Pa.) 1867-1938, 1874-09-11
TIE Tennessee Troubles.

Mr. Jefferson Davis addressed meeting
in Memphis the 2Sth ut., called TO give
expression to the public sentiment concern
ing the eutrages in Gibson county. Mr..
Davis said
FRIENDS AND CoUNTRVMFN Iou have
assembled tonight not for the bare purpose
of giving that exp cSsion which humanity
demands but you have assembled for a
holier duty. 1t is what you owe to your
selves; what yos owe to posterity; what
you owe to the living what you owe 20 the
gallant dead who died fighting for the
sacred cause of Southern Independence.
And you men of Polk, of GTundy, of Glib
son, beware that you do not dishonOr the
dead nor tarniSh the living. gu are not
here to express your horror of particular
crime. 1t is crime to be punished, and to
be pun ished as it deservcs,-a crime that
appeals to the officers of the law that they
viii do their duty. You have came here
to appeal to the country abroad that You
are not a race of asSaSsinS, that you den t
wear masks, aud that, i'll asserting your
rights, you Will go forward to the end of
your lives never wearing mask nor even
blackening your face. Applause. | was
the other day particularly struck at read
ing the testimony of negro before one of
those investigating committees in South
Carolina. He was asked if he knew " ade
Hampton. Oh, yes, they had been raised
together from childhood. Did he believe
that he was engaged in any of those ku-
kluX outrages? No, he did not. Why?
Because said the negro, ''if MasSa " ade
Hampton had anything to do with those
men, it would have been the white men
that he would have been after and not the
ncgroes.' Applause. The Southern men
are the only friends the negro has in any
part of the world. 1t becomes us to be
their friends. Every Southern man mem
ory runs back to the good old black woman
who nursed him in his infancy, and then
to the boy who hunted and fished with him.
and the man who learned him to ride. All
remember with what Joy and manifesto
tions of love the nurse welcomed him back
home after he had reached manhood.
While these memories cluster around him,
he can never forget them when they stood
in those relations which I believe God in
tended that they should occupy. If these
rei5, ions have cen disturbed, it has been
by those inceGdiaries who have come in
among US oily to stir up strife. 1t now
rests with Won 10 show to the world that
you are incapable ol Sc 'ret crime that you
hate the men who wear tl.e TASK or black
the face, and that whatever /, .'"cessaIy
for the public peace that you will DO II an
open manner with the visor raised and the
helmet open. [AppiauSe. The colored
people require the white man to provide
for and look after them now as much as
they ever did. Now, there arc men who
think that i'll the event of Il war of races
! the blacks would be eXterminated ana tha {
we would then have happy and roseate
future. | have no sympathy with those
men. The negroes were my friends in the
old time, ana took care of our wives, and
children, and homes in the time of war
They brought this grand Mississippi Val
ley into cultivation, and are the only ones,
| think, that can or will be ever able to
successfully cultivate it. Applause. But
| don't intend to touch upon question
upon which every man has already formed
an opinion. | have no feeling against the
colored men. The only indignation which
feel is against those white men who have
carried them into the position which they
now occupy. Let us have our vengence
against them, not against the poor blacks.
/ LApplause.l