The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1875-09-09

Mr.. Nordhoff, the Southern peripatetic
correspondent of the New York Herald, is
close observer of Southern facts and his
deductions are generally just. His judicial
fairness, in any event, is conspicuous and
it only happens, now and then, that he is
misled simply because there are facts on
the surface contradicted by those more en-
during and universal but less patent to the
migratory correspondent. He repeats, in
his last letter from Georgia, the old story
of constantly apprehended dangers in the
midst of countless blacks. Nobody, in the
days of negro servitude, ever dreamed of
revolt or violence at their hands, and no
planter ever used any precaution to prevent
it. Even so to-day, where negroes are
most numerous and whites relatively few
est, people live, as in the lowlands of the
Mississippi, never once dreaming of negro
s'insurrections. The conduct of the race
when war ragged and when the whole arms
bearing white population of the South was
drawn into armies should assure Mr.. Nord-
hoff that in presenting this picture of the
relations of the races he is wholly at fault.
Negroes of interior plantations are addicted
to nameless crime, and women dread
them, but they are not ordinarily murder
GUS or disposed to revolt and when drawn
into any plot, like that which recently
frightened eastern people more than
Georgians, blacks were simple dupes
of white scoundrels. A negro Turner,
of bloody memory in Virginia, isn't
born once in century. But we
only proposed to give Mr.. Nordhof's
commentary upon the negro code of Georgia
as this affects their control of the ballot
box. Mr.. Nordhof says that "a law of the
State deprives man of his vote at an cleo
ton who has not paid his taxes for the year
previous. There is poll tax of one dollar.
This said Republican, works badly
against our party, because the negroes
evade its payment, or are careless about it,
or lose their tax receipts, and then their
vote is vigorously challenged and they lose
it, Half the negroes in Georgia are dis
franchised for non-payment of their poll
tax was the assertion of another and a
Jealous Republican, a leading man in the
party. Many whites do not pay either,
he added, but the Republicans do not
challenge as vigorously as the Democrats.
A number of Republicans complained of
this law to me as though it was wrong, or
unfair; but think, on the contrary, it is
just and right. Indeed, would go even
further. In the Sandwich Islands found
law which seemed to be excellent. 1t COM
pels every man to pay annually one dollar
poll tax, two dollars road tax and two dol
lars school tax. making five dollars, which is
exacted from every poll. Such law could
wisely be adopted in every Southern State,
and, indeed, in all our States. And if a
voter neglects or refuses to pay his poll tax,
certainly he is not fit to cast vote. By the
way, Republican in North Carolina owned
to me that so remiss were the colored people
there in paying their poll tax, that if failure
to pay there forfeited the vote, two-third'
4 of the negroes in the State would be dis
franchised."
In all elections in Texas the law OF the
Sandwich Islands, as Mr.. Nordhoff suggests,
would prove eminently advantageous, and
in local and municipal elections, on which
depends at least every property interest, and
thus the prosperity of the State, none
should vote excent freeholders.