The Somerset press. [volume] (Somerset, Ohio) 1873-1977, 1874-12-11
MISCELLANY.
The South and the Negro.

Mr.. Edwin De Leon, of Charleston,
South Carolina, now resident in London,
and formerly L tied States consul at
Cairo, has been writing for Fraser's
Magazine a series of papers on "The
southern States since the War" The
following passage is from the paper in
the November number of the magazine:
There are not dozen men left in the
whole South Ito the writer's knowledge
who entertain either the idea or the hope
that the political privileges of the emaH-
him, or who doubt their own power to
regulate and control it ultimately for
their own, and the common benefit, could
the disturbing element, the carpet-bag
ger, he removed either peaceably or for
cibly Neither does any sane Southern
man seriously contemplate the possibilI-
ty or the advisability of getting rid Of
the four million blacks born, bred, and
domiciled at the South, nor desire any
substitute for the labor of those strong
and willing arms; convinced that the
freedman never can or will be the rival
or the successor of the white landed pro-
prietor, but only his hired help or la
borer hereafter, as heretofore. The i'm
prudent utterances and foolish sayings
made by or attributed to Southern men
on this subject, have been condemned as
severely at the South as elsewhere by the
mass of the population, who sympathize
in no such frenzied or absurd outgivings.
Even the war could not kill off all the
fossils or all the fools in the Southern
country, a few of whom may still splut-
ter, rant and rave, talk wild nonsense,
and become the petty instruments of
mighty mischief to the people and sec
ton for whom they profess so much, by
giving fresh pretexts to their oppressors;
but the great Southern heart beats not
in unison with such insane talk, OF with
lawless acts perpetrated in the name of
patriotism. Her people desire peace,
both with the North and with the negro,
and will not imperil it by any act of
theirs. The Southern people to-day are
as true to the Union and the Constitu-
ton teven with its amendments, which
have changed the status of themselves
and their slaves) as the people of the
North: and, if there be any other move
ment for disunion in the States within
this generation, it assuredly will not come
from the South, who will hereafter bear
the ills she has rather than fly to Others
she knows not of OF this friend and
foe may rest assured. Of politics the
Southern people have had sufficient
and more than sufficient Their
most earnest aspiration is to be
let alone If they seem almost as
unit in favor of the Democratic party
it is only because that symbOlizes the op-
position to the Administration, and the
party which have so terribly and vim
dictively oppressed them, and sought tc
put them not only on an equality with
but under the feet of their former slaves
and of the crawling white reptiles thai
have controlled them. There has beer
no time within the last eight years wher
General Grant and his party might no
have disbanded the Southern De
mocracy, and secured cordial suppor
at the South, by even a show of justice
and magnanimity, and cessation of al
most intolerable persecution. They
might do so tomorrow If wisdom ruled
their councils and their action. TC
sum up this statement of the actual sit
uation, it is necessary only to repeat tina
the mutual feeling of the great masses
of blacks and whites throughout the
former slave States is kind and forbear
ing, and friendly in all things not polit
ical. The old relations exist betwee1
the races, in spite of this discrepancy
everywhere outside of the narrow limit
already indicated; and this area is rapid
ly diminishing and dwindling into
vanishing point"