New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1875-07-01

anybody to beat Grant," it will be
slightly amended so as to ring out ':any.
body to beat-the treasury"
MORAL AND PHYSICAL VALUE OF THE
G0LORED RACE.
With the abatement of the zeal against
the suffrage Of the men of color has come
a candid acknowledgment of their value
as operatives in the production of the
great national crops of sugar and cotton.
The REPUBLICAN has explained their Ca
pacity as mechanics and as manufacturers
and has predicted that they will come to
| spin the cotton which they now produce
1t would certainly be great tribute to
the government which has liberated them
If the colored race should not only con-
tribute SO much to production, but should
also aid in preserving the national credit
by importing millions Of dollars in specie
and to that extent stopping the outflow of
precious metals. and thus enabling the
nation to work up to the redemption OF
its currency in specie.
There is another point Of view in which
the colored people may perhaps commend
! themselves to the moralists OF the Union.
North and South. Withou, apprehending
the transfer Of the papal system to Amer
lea. there seems to be q disposition in
some OF our contemporaries to prepare for
q possible conflict between those old an.
tagonists. the Protestant and Roman
Catholic religions. The Washington
Republic says:
In 1900 our whole population was $685.
937. and the Roman Catholics not quite
10000. In 1875 our total population is esti-
mated at 40, 900, 900, and the total Roman
Catholics at very nearly 6500,000. In the
past seventy five years they have risen from
one-sirteh Of QUE total population to fully
0ne-sirth.
It adds this warning:
Tho hour may yet come, and not so far
away, when the United States shall stand
Roman Catholic power unless We heed the
warnings before us.
Without entering into these apprehen-
sions, We may yet say tina. We shall be
always found the opponents Of any con-
nection whatever between religion and
government: but if this question should
at any time assume serious proportions.
it is proper 10 say that among this eman-
cipated people Of the South will be found |
a degree of intelligence and piety which
will correspond with their other conser.
vative qualities. and which will be always
found arrayed against any claim of ale.
glance TO any other power than that OF the |
United States.
It has so happened in the wisdom Of
God that great majority of this race has
been indoctrinated with these ideas, and !
may be always rallied to their support if |
any emergency should render it necessary. !
IN this connection we submit few fig
ures as appro1imating accuracy, showing |
the religious division Of the people ;nhab.
iting the lately slaveholding States. !
The Protestan; sitiings in these States, !
according to the last census, humber !
Z, 7G2, 2s1. the Catholics SOL, 291. There
is, then, Protestant majority of 7,31l.- |;
076. The gross colored population Of the
same States is something upward
of four and a. half millions of
persons. OF about forty-dve per cent
of the gross population. Assuming the
men and voters of this race at one-ffth
the whole number we should have 657, 1926
colored religionists. and deducting Isl, 426
for negro Catholics there would be left
half million Of voters who might in any
be relied on to vote against
any measure Of Church and State. or any
of the American to the
temporal supremacy Of any other govern
nent than its own. We should regret
if this scourge of civiliza ton
which has devastated and distracted SO
many countries of the Old World should,
With many another Old World pestilence,
.ome ''to torment US before our time"
should such calamity. however, befall
Is, the conservative colored people who
make the crops and perform so much
household duty in the South, will be found
valuable element for preserving it from
ny such consequences as the Washington
Republic seems to apprehend.