National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1875-09-27

udice by resistance. This advice has been
freely given and everywhere f,llowed, with
the hope on the part of those who have given
1t, as well as those by whom 1t has been taken,
that continuous good behavior would at last
have the effect to dispel malice and disarm re-
venge.
Q. Because of their long slavery the freed
men have been chained down by ignorance, It
being against the policy of the Southern State
governments to allow the slaves TO be edu-
Gated. Having become free, they are still
densely ignorant, and no ignorant people can
protect themselves against organized brutality,
notwithstanding they may Lave superior num-
bers and superabundsnce of physical strength.
In other words, the freedmen, as usual
thing, have no leaders, and If they have them
of theirow color their leaders have very little
more intelligence than the rank and file. 1t
should be considered that before the war and
during it all this body of men who have been
made free citizens were kept in subsection, and
were made by their labor to sustain the very
institution (of slavery that destroyed their
will and CAUSED them to contribute to their
own degradation. In reality, they have no
more idea of their own strength now than they
had when slaves, and the "bloody ruifians"
who murder them are quick to take advantage
of this ignorance, and pursue without scruple
their cowardly outrages, knowing theyshaye
nothing to fear.
3. The freedmen are not OF belligerent na-
ture, being remarkably docile in disposition,
and, although good fighters when well led |,
their natural disposition when left to them
selves is to submit to the wrongs hesped upon
them by their prosecutors.
These facts are not understood by the North
ern people, and, it may be, the Attorney Gen.
eral himself does not recognize them. The
men who live afar off and who do not IN
derstand, judge of what ought to be done only
by what they would do themselves under like
circumstances; and it may be, after all, that
the advice of Fred. Douglass and Attorney
General Pierrepont is the only solution of the
difficulties arising from what the President
calls "these annual autumnal outbreaks in the
South" We have never doubted that the
''bloody ruffians" would not be so bloody were
they to encounter death or great danger when
ever they set out on a "nigger hunt" In the
Ku-Klux times, and now, while the White
Leagues carry terror and desolation into the
hearts and homes of the negroes, the attacking
parties always take good care that their on
slaughts are made without danger to them
selves.
There is no earthly doubt that large ma
jority of the Southern whites deprecate these
slaughters; but they seem to be paralyzed by
the "bloody ruffians," submitting to their law
lessness rather than oppose their nefarious pur-
poses. In this submission there is positive
guilt; and it behooves all good citizens Of what
ever party affiliations, TO resolutely set their
faces against the unbridled license of the cut
throats who regard it as a pastime to shoot
down the 'innocent and unoffending freed
men," A healthy public sentiment would rem
der it unnecessary for the Southern Republi-
cans to flight for their rights