New national era. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1870-1874, 1874-06-04

The Reverend Doctor Scar, agent of the
Peabody Educational Fund, and the Rev.
erend Doctor Jeter, of Richmond, Va, bore
concurrent testimony as to the danger with
which the public school system of the South
was threatened by the passage of the civil
rights bill. They both thought and said in
effect, that if the negro was treated as an
American citizen, it would so offend the
white people of the South that they would
forego all the advantages of public education.
If their statements be true, no stronger
reason could be found for the passage of the
Civil Rights Bill. If good sense and good
feeling and good citizenship are such
strangers among these ex-rebels as to need
the powers of an imperial statute to import
them, let lis, by all means, have the statute
If the South is to spurn the advan tages of
public education because the negro will have
equal share in them, let them spurn.
But who raises the cry? Are the parties
wholly disinterestcd who rush thus boldly
and shamelessly to the rescue of deyilisll
prejudice? Who are Drs Scar and Jeter +?
Both of them are proslavery colonizationists,
both Of them belong 10 the Priest md Levte
order. Why should such men stain their
black kids, and soil then broa.l-cloth in lift
ing the beaten and despatched colored child
from the mire of ignorance into the advantage
es of an equal education: Why should
they? Their order never did. In the days
OF Christ they passed by on the other side of
suffering because it was too much trouble to
practice what they preached. During the
days of slavery we all remember how this
class, who stole the livery of the court of
heaven to serve the devil in, submitted the
bible to the fortunes Of false Interpretation
to find an excuse for buying and selling their
own flesh and blood like cattle in the sham
Aes. This sacred order famished the first
advocates of slavery, and those belonging to
it, were the last to yield to that sense of
events with which Providence destroyed their
idol.
The reason Of their course is not difficult
OF ascertainment. The begging system by
which they live compcls them to cringe to
the rich. The idle lives which most of them
lead-cating and drinking and visiting among
those who can entertain them-crushes out
all sympathy with the poor. 1t was an easy
thing for DR.. Sears to arrange for the asking
of a question in the answer to which he could
have chance to set his clerical foot upon the
poor black mans neck, but it is not so easy
to conceal the motives which moved him to
do it,
at will break up the public school system
in the South" will it: Well, let it break
What is any system worth which can't bear
the weight of right and Justice: DR.. Sears
knows that Judaism was broken up by the
teachings Of christianity and he pretends to
be trying to break up the DEVILS kingdom by
preaching Christ, and yet he gives pious
alarm Of danger to a system that can't tolerate
the presence Of a black child whose way to
Heaven lies through the school-house.
II is humorous to notice this pretended
anxiety on the part of these several gentle
men. Like all their class, they will obey
when political necessity shall force the rich,
whom they serve, to accept equality before
the law in Richmond as it was accepted long
years ago in Boston.
For ourselves we have no fear of any kind
respecting the Civil-Rghts Bill. No party
can keep in power which is afraid of that bill .
and almost any party can gain even in its
infancy, balance of power which will make
Civil Rights, Or rather, public rights, one of
the planks of its platform.