The Ouachita telegraph. [volume] (Monroe, La.) 1865-1889, 1875-03-12
THE CIVIL RIGHTS BILL.

TFrOm the Mobile RewiSter.1

More Dead Sea Apples to the Negroes.
[From the Mobile Register.l
After long years of promises, an en-
piring Radical party in an expiring
Congress have presented the colored
people of the South with the legacy of
a so-called Civil Rights law. If it shall
prove a good gift to them, and does not
| entail far more trouble and harm than
benefit to their interests, it will be Il
marked exception to any present that
the negroes have ever received from
the Radical party. All the legislation
of the Radical party on the colored
question has been shaped with Il single
eye to the advantage of the party. The
benefit to the negro has always been Il
secondary consideration. Liberty is Il
precious boon to every people, and is as
sweet to the colored race as to any other.
We have already frequently shown
that this was not voluntary Radical
gift, but was forced from it by the hard
fighting of the Confederates during the
war. There was not one hour during
the war when the South could not
have been assured by theLincoln admin
istration of Il continuance of the institu
ton of slavery if it had consented to lay
down its arms. That it did not accept
peace on those terms is absolute proof
that she was not fighting for negro
slavery, but for white eindcpendence. 1t
was only when the Lincoln Government
became convinced that it could not
beat the Confederate armies without
emancipation, that Mr.. Lincoln reluc-
tantly issued his emancipation pro-
clamation. This is history, and it eX-
plodes the Radical bubble upon which
has so long fed the negro imagination,
that the latter owe their freedom to that
party. They have to thank the hard
fighting of their old masters for it and
nothing else. If President Davis had
been less firm and General Lee less of a
great Captain, and the people of the
South had said the word slavery would
have been in existence to-day. We re-
peat, this IS history. But admitting
that it was !. Radical gift. At the time
and under the circumstances, what Il
cruel gift it was! 1t has cost the lives
of Il million OF the people upon whom
it was conferred. 1t has cost the
masses Of them ten years of poverty,
rags, hard life and wretched depen-
dence by casting them with single
stroke of the pen into a condition of
life, with the struggles Of which they
were wholly unprepared to contend.
Freedom is beautiful to those who can
enjoy it. To those who cannot. the
gift is death. The wild birds rcvcI in
it, but the tame cXotics whose cages
are opened to them fly to immediate
destruction. The negroes should have
been liberated, and as Southern pa
triot, we thank God that they were, for
without it perfect Southern develop
ment was impossible. And in the
long run-for the lives of nations must
not be counted by the years of men
we doubt not that all tho suffering it
has cost the present generation of the
South was not ovcr-payment for the
deed. But given to the negroes as it
was-suddcnly, without preparation,
thrown into the deep waters of life and
told to swim for their existence, when
they knew not how to make a single
stroke of art-this was Il deed of heart
less cruelty, and conclusive proof that
emancipation was conceived and exc
cutcd at the terrible cost of the negro
for Radical party advantage.
The privilege of suffrage, before the
negro was prepared for it, either for
his own or the country's good, was
just such another fatal and intensely
selfish Radical gift. 1t simply gave
the negro the right to vote and then
made him and his vote the slaves of the
Radical party. With the name of free
dom the black people have simply
exchanged masters; with this differ
ence, that the Old master used to feed
and clothc and house and doctor them,
while their new ones leave them to
make their hard fight for life by them
selves, except when elections come
round. The s'mule and forty -acro'
gift has never been realized just because
the party found it could manage its
negroes without it. And SO, the present
gift of the Civil Rights bill was held
back until the party became desperate
and had only six days left of its Con-
grcssional life. And now the value of
the last selfish gift to the negro will
soon be tested. TO the blacks it is a
snare and dclusiOn which will prove of
no benefit to them, and it ia bound to
get them into q sea of troubles. And it
is of no benefit because it is an attempt
by Congress to work an impossibility.
Congress can as easily change the cOforof
the skin of a human being, by statute,
as it can create social equality. 1t is
nothing more than an attempt TO
change the laws of Nature and to Grad
icate from the minds and souls of men
feelings and instincts that arc as