The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1875-04-28
THE COLOR LINE.
How it was Drawn by the Negro Members
at the late Session Of the Legislature.


posed. How contemptuously they treat
ed the respectful petitions of the tax
payers. How they acted as if they
were legislators and masters of the peo-
pie by divine right. How they wasted
the peoples substance, and took delight
in quartering drones upon the treasury,
with every appearance Of malicious plea
sure in adding to the suferings Of the
ax-paying classes.
In making declarations so bold, We
will be expected to cite facts in proof.
We are prepared to do this, and further,
to verify them by the Legislative. records.
The Journals will show:
1st. That the negro members of the
House with only one exception voted
against reducing the compensation Of
members Of the Legislature. 1t oras
strictly color line affair. The whites to a
man voted on the other side. 1t is prop
err to say that the present compensation,
which the negroes displayed their deter
mination not to reduce, is more than
double what it was before the war that
the sessions are held twice as often, and
therefore the cost to the people is four
times as much. The negro leaders APP
pealed to their followers, By their race, to
support this downright robbery, and the
orDaaI ,uas not m ode IN vain
%. In the House, (January Goth, the
mass Of the negroes voted to defeat the
Biennial Session Amendment to the Con-
stitution. The Conservatives and the
white Republicans voted for the amend
ment; few negroes separated from the
body Of their race and voted with them.
They were exceptions. This eoas another
color line affair 1t was stated at the
time, in the Plaindealer, a paper owned
and conducted by colored Republicans,
that this action of the negro members was
taken in accordance with a precOncerted
arrangement by them in caucus held sep
arate from the whites; and it was more
than intima ted that the motive at the
bott ON of the agreement was to secure
the additional pay attaching to annual
sessions, Notwithstanding the taxpayers
petition for the reform, and the commit
tai of the Republican party to carry it
out.
Sd. The white people pay forty-nine
fiftieths of The tax to support the State
and a still larger proper
ton of the Public School tax. Hence
they are educating, out of their small
earnings, not only their own children,
but those of the blacks; and yet, when
in consideration of their poverty, prop
osition was made to reduce the tax two
mills on the dollar, which would not have
impaired the efficiency of the system,
every colored member of the Senate
voted against it, along with Ames' man
Friday, Packer, who alone of the white
voted against reduction.
4th The most atrocious measure which
has ever been devised in any govern
ment pretending to be republican, was
the State Police Bill, designed as a
scourge for Warren County especially, |
and the State generally. Its chief and
main support came from the blacks.
9Th. In both houses all the coIored |
members voted with the carpet-bag ma
ignants in favor of the Standing Army
1atling gun atrocity This was in keep
ng with the invariable rule to support |
Every scheme of vindictiveness and rob-
)ery that was offered.
These are but examples of the gener-
ii conduct of the negro members, 1--WE |
speak of the rule, not of EXCEPTIONS at
he last session of the Legislature, in
drawing the color line against the whites
n a spirit of animosity and of their
treatment of the petitions
# the latter for redress of admitted |
grievances. The Journals, from begin
ling to end, are filled with evidences of
and malicious intention to
dominate the latter with bayonet and
failing guns, and to plumber them under
he forms of law.
These things show the momentous ma
ure of the issues that are upon us, and
he necessity Of united action in the
ending election, to avert condition of
uture anarchy and distress in Mississip-
i. of which there has been scarcely a
oretaste in the past examples of Radical
lisrule.
The Legislature must be carried by the
or the State will cease to
e habitable by the taxpaying classes who
re treated as beasts of burden, and to-
ards whom the negro leaders at the last
assion of the Legislature evinced no
ceiling of responsibility. 1t is a doctrine
republican government that taxation
nd representation must 60 together.
When this doctrine is thrust out of view,
nd the governing power is RENTED to a
on-taA paying class and welded by igno-
lnce and hatred, the inevitable sequence
ill be plumber, oppression and anarchy.
The BIOOded stock Business
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