The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1875-04-21
The Race Issue Tendered by the Negro
Leaders-The Dirty ofthe Whites.


Leaders-The Dirty Of the Whites.
The Yazoo Banner, one of the ablest
and most temperate of our State ex-
changes, in announcing the recent Demo
ocratic victory in Yazoo City, speaks as
follows of color line circular which was
issued in the Radical interest on the eve
of the election, and Of its effect upon the
Conservative voters:
"a circular, signed by "Colored Citi-
zens, addressed to the white voters Of
Y azoo City and circulated On last Safur-
day awakened all the sleeping energy
of the Democrats. It's words and tone
were ill-timed and the Monday lesson will
teach our "Colored Citizens" that such
addresses are humbugs. with pain"
they would witness that which We had
50 often denied, the exhibition Of color
line spirit. We have been trying to keep
from drawing the Color Line for the last
ten years, but our effort has been without
success. A one-sided business must
finally play out. Our ''Colored Citizens"
have been acting on the color line princi-
pie for more than ten years, but If We 50
act, after being goaded ON for the same
number Of years it will be witnessed with
pain. ''Colored Citizens" none would
more gladly see the sbliteration of the
color line in Mississippi than we, but you
must show us by your deeds and not
by words alone, that you desire the same
end"
This is one of the many instances
which have been exhibited this State,
and more especially Of late, by the colored
leaders and their misguided dupes to
force a race, or color, line issue on the
whites.
Presuming upon the well-known reluc-
lance of a large class Of Conservative
citizens to engage IN contest of that
kind, with its probabilities of strife and
bitterness and false construction abroad,
the negro leaders and their followers at
the last session were especially arrogant,
and left nothing undone to put themselves
in an attitude Of hostility and defiance
towards the white people. We could
we'll see after the opposition which the
mass Of the whites exhibited in 1867 to
comforting suffrage ON the blacks, cause
| for the latter to ,listrust the leadership of
the former, especially as it was coupled
with the legislation Of 1860 and '66, when
neither race was prepared for the extra
| ordinary changes which had been accom-
plished by the war; and We could well
understand why, after having fallen un-
der the malign guidance of self seeking
adventures, they have been prone to
adhere to it in subsequent contests pure
Iy partisan and political but there is
nothing in the history OF the past-which
has borne ample evidences of the acqui-
escence of all classes of the people in the
constitutional amendments, securing to
the blacks the complete enjoyment of
every civil and political privilege pos
sessed by any other classic justify the
color line demonstrations of the negro
members at the last session of the Legis-
lature, upon questions having no refer
ence to the rights of their race; and to
the disposition which they repeatedly
exhibited to trample upon the rights of
the whites, rob them OF the little prop
erty they have left, by onerous and
unjust taxation and to ignore contemp
tuously their petitions for redress in mat
tiers essential, in fact, to the welfare Of
We disclaim all responsibility for the
rugged issue which these recorded acts
present. 1t has no reference to the
civil and political privileges of the blacks.
1t concerns the manhood and equal
rights of the white race. 1t is one thing
to urge the white people to draw the
color line and throw down the gage
which we have consistently opposed; but
quite different thing to accept it in
self-defense when rendered. Even the
worm in the dust will sting when trodden
upon. If asked what should be done,
we would answer that as a measure of
self-protection the white people should
bend all their energies to the election of
Legislature which will arrest these
alarming tendencies towards race domi-
nation, with its inevitable consequences
of anarchy, strife, class legislation and |
robbery.