New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1874-08-23

equaled within few years the wisdom
Of that race which has had centuries o.
experience in the ways of intelligent
liberty? It seems to Us very harsh
penalty. It seems to us very hasty
decision that because the freedmen did not
at the first opportunity evince the highest
degree Of human intelligence, and vote
the Democratic ticket, that they should
therefore be cut of from all political
rights. The White League should really
recollect that there are great many
white American citizens who would suffer
the same penalty for the same ofense.
Does any one doubt that if the negroes
would vote the Democratic ticket they
would not be molested in the exercise OF
their right of suffrage? Mr.. Lawrence
comments forcibly upon the injustice of
this restriction upon TIE conscientious
right Of private judgment
With such an unparalleled advance in
intelligent capacity, would it be wise for
the Southern people to exclude the colored
race from further improvement?
2. Will it be wise to expel the colored
people from Louisiana?
This must inevitably result from a
successful attempt to compel the exercise
of suffrage according to the orders OF
the whites. For what limit will there
be to the restrictions put upon the
rights of the negro if he be not allowed
vote or o place in tho State gov
eminent? It is unnecessary to suppose
that the negro has the highest conception
of the nature of free suffrage, but he
knows that it is a protection, and, if it
be prohibited, his fears will impel him
to take his labor to some market where it
will be equally valuable and where his
life at least will be protected. Mr..
Lawrence is a large land owner and
sugar planter. He knows that the value
of land depends upon the rate at which
labor can be commanded. He knows
that negroes were imported into Louisi-
ena because white labor was inadequate
to the crop culture in this climate. Sup
pose the decree of the White
League be enforced, that no negro la
borer shall be employed unless he con-
form to the political opinions of his
employer. MIR. Lawrence knows that valu-
able lands may be without laborers, and
this he rightly regards as very serious
consideration to an indebted and impov-
erished people. The purport of his argu-
ment is: l. That since the colored peo-
pie are indispensable to the culture OF our
lands, it would be unwise to compel or
even to risk their exodus 2. That as the
people have advanced from barbarism to
intelligence under one system, it would be
unwise, when they are more needed than
they were ever before, to abandon the
effort to improve them still further, and to
make them useful, intelligent and inter-
ested citizens.
We consider this letter-apparently
forced from Mr.. Lawrence by the indus
trial exigencies of the occasion-as most
important document. 1t marks the line
to which the needy and inscriptions
Office hunters have drawn and driven the
business interests of the country, and the
point at which the rope broke, with the
resistance of men who had too much at
stake to permit their being dragged to de-
struction. Dragged to vote for Greeley,
the Abolitionist in 1872. Driven to shoot
negro citizens and laborers at their posts
in 1874. Such despotie service was
never exacted before. Such arrant self
reputation was never asked of any re-
spectacle men heretofore. Mr.. Lawrence
has with thousands OF others in Louis
lana, felt that this partisan despotism has
been endured and submitted to until it
becomes public and a personal duty to
resist and denounce it.