The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1874-02-12
T-Iae CaI0resl Leaders, or AlBe GmAa
orea People in s1tssfs~fppi...
Efaefr sraTsou- fss y a 9SfsSIori.

Beccner2s Journal, the Christian Lnlou'
headed strhe PROSTATE State. and elicit
Cd by the condition to which South Caro-
lima has been brought.
The responsibilities devolving upon the
colored leaders Of their race in this State.
are great. These. people have nearly
100 900 majority in the whole population
Their rottng majority Is not less than
10000. aud It is rapidly increasing
hropgh the efforts Of the landowners OF
the bottom region. There is no est
mating the number Of blacks who will be
collected into that fertile region within
the next ten years from the border
States. whore the lands are compare
lively exhausted The tide has just
commenced. At the ballot box numbers
are invincble and will give TO the ne
eroes, If they act uDitedly, the control OF
TIE entire machinery of the State gov
eminent In the lower branch of the Leg
Stature they now have within two OF a
majority over the whites, Republicans and
Conservatives combined. In the Senate
have they one-third of the members; and
the number is constantly increasing.
Upon the leaders of tais preponderat-
ing class must, therefore, devolve the
larger share Of the responsibility of de
Gliding the future condition Of Missis-
-ippi. For the errors Of the past, the ne
or5as are not as blameable as others.
When it was decreed they should vote,
the mass Of the whites took offence, and
instead Of becoming their teachers and
guides, entered upon a preposterous cru
saae against their right to do SO. In a
moment Of madness the whites aband-
oned themselves to the leadership of the
impractcable fossils whom Andy John
SON had called from obscurity and put in
authority over the Southern people, and
who had promised them deliverance from
negro suffrage by an appeal to the Courts
OF course these promises ended III moth
ing but the undoing Of the thoughtless
multitude They did not prevent negro
suffrage, but they succeeded in impress
ing the new voter with the belief that
the Southern whites were opposed to his
enjoyment Of the rights to which he was
entitled under our democratic theory of
government They literally drove the
negro to the standard of the carpetbag
adventures, who were overjoyed at the
opportunity and made haste to turn it to
their own account. These adventures
had bat one object IN view. They were
fortunes ekers. They wanted office for
the sake Of the money it would enable
them to acquire The blacks, ignorant
and inexperienced, believed their profess
ons of friendship, hailed them as deliver
aa followed them into the hostile
lr ere they had pitched their tents
ing on their depredations upon
what was left of the property, and upon
the labor Of the toiling people. They
were Ie bllndfold by the INSCRIPTIONS
williams into whose hands, the whites,
who were the natural friends of the ne
groes, had played.
Under these circumstances, it is no
wonder the blacks, untaught, credulous
and not unreasonabIy fearful of loosing
their newly acquired rights, became con-
vonient instruments Of base men bent
upon selfish ends. Monstrous gerry
manders to render secure i'll gotten
power-eXtravagant and corrupt govern
Observation-Disclosures all man
ner Of wickedness were the consequent
ces,
Now, it is time for the colored leaders
TO arrest these evils, They have the
power to do it! They are thinning out
the carpet-bagger.. 1t is gratifying to
ind how many of the latter have been
forced to give place to colored men in the
Legislature These colored men repre-
sent population who are permanently
Identified with the State Unlike the
,arpet-baggers, they are not birds of pas
sage. Colored men You have bad seven
years of training in political affairs. You
nave learned your power numerically and
nave shown yourselves to be intellectu-
lily superior to the strangers who have
set themselves up as your political rulers.
L is time for you to take the reins of
your party in your own hands, and dis
pense with the services and the presence
If these base creatures, and address
yourselves in sober earnest to the sal
yation of the State A. K. Davis, Car
Ter, Hill, Gleed, ReveIs, Caldwell,
Shadd, Spelman, the Lynches, Bruce,
md others we might mention, are inf
nitely superior in all the essentials of
true manhood and honor, to the white
whose lead their race has
been following. 1t is for these repre-
men of the colored race to say
whether Mississippi shall occupy the bad
aminence Of South Carolina and be
pointed at as an example of negro inca
pacity of selfgovernment and docilitv
il the hands of degraded white men who
have made their living by office, got
-en through them, or TO take her place
among the prosperous States of the
Union.
THE RosTRATE STATE
It would be bard 10 find IN the history
of modern nations 81 mere saddening or
iisgustful picture OF the wreck and desc
alton of society than is presented at this
moment in South Carolina; and the con
ition of South Carolina, we suppose, is
out a type OF the social Indebtedness and
he nnIifieal shame which attach To tho