The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1875-07-01
A LESSON FOR THE PEOPLE OF
TEXAS.

1t has been commonly asserted by carpet
baggers that negroes were victims of lntin
idation and often dared not vote But it
is proven that the rascal Spencer, thenegro-
chosen Senator from Alabama, absolutely
used the army of the United States, in many
districts of Alabama, to repel whites and
attract negroes to the voting places. 1t
was the whites who were intimidated. while
Spencer was organizing the Legislature to
lift himself into the Senate of the United
States. But there is more terrible and
all-pervading system of Intimidation by
which decent people of all classes, every
where in the South, are driven from the
voting places. There is here an inherent,
indestructible prejudice of race, never felt
while the two peoples are remote from one
another. When white men are impelled, by
a sense of patriotic duty, to attend at vot-
lug places, they ever manifest natural and
violent aversion to this absolute chemical
admixGure" with blacks. No one objects
to perfect equality before the law, The
same measure of justice should be meted
out alike to whites and blacks in civil and
criminal courts, but there is a degree of
personal and social equality in this business
of voting, especially as conducted in towns
and cities, against which every prejudice
and instinct of person and race revolts. tt
is not intimidation, but self-respect and in
nate pride affecting the conduct of whites,
that gives limitless potency to the African
as voter. The business of voting is
deemed by many disreputable. We con-
stantly. hear white people say they will
| never vote again. The blessed amendments
have degraded the privilege of suffragein
the eyes of deceney. It's .contemned and
despised. Stupid negroes, on the contrary,
have been taught that the privilege
of voting is of inestimable value, and that
the duration of negro freedom depends
upon its vigorous exercise. Sambo relig-
iously believes this, and votes often and
compactly with his race, and as the leaders
of his party direct. By this state of facts
the whites, wherever negroes abound, are
ever subjected by the innocent blacks to
the domination of matchless rascalslike this
remorseless scoundrel aud adventurer, Spen-
Ger. But we only proposed to say that
whites have been often repelled, as shown
by the testimony in Spencer's case, from
voting places in the South by force and by
bsyonets; the negroes, never. Hardships
endured by blacks, and burdens imposed
upon them by whites, are mainly fictitious,
and ''the heat and burden of the day y
consists in that utter aversion to the dis.
charge of the highest duties of citizenship
begotteR by the degradation of the ballot
u-a brutalizat:on of the ballot-box.
Would it not be wise if Texan statesmen,
now about to frame new government, rem
edied the evil of which we complaint Is
it not the blackest and grasest that over
shal alows us May We not, when it costs
nothing of power in Congress, and when
there is no obstacle in constitutional amend
ments, relieve Texan couaties and towns OF
the terrible evil and restore the ballot to
decency, and thus produce that action, in
teTest and participation in public affairs
which obtained in former era LESSONS
taught by events in Mississippi and Ala
bama are invaluable in Texas.