The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1875-07-21

p De capable of holding Office was necessa
ry, am persuaded, to make him person
ally secure, and, what is of more import
ance, to convert him from a freedman
into freeman. That he has not Away
conducted himself well in the exercise o
his political rights Is perfectly and la
mentally true, but this is less his faul
than that of the bad white men who in
troduced him to political life. But, OF
the other hand, the vote has given hin
+. what nothing less could give-a substan
stantlve existence. 1t has made him g
part OF the State; wherever, as in Ar
kansas, the political settlement nears
completion, and the color line is broken,
his political equality viii help-slowly,
but certainly make him respectable
person. will add that In this view
many Southern Democrats concur " II
the North had not given the negroes suf-
frage it would have had to hold our
States under an exclusively military gov
eminent for ten years" said such a man
TO me.
HOW NEGRO SUFFRAGE IS DANGEROUS.
~. General manhood suffrage is I'M
doubleday a danger to a community
where, as in these States, the entire body
of ignorance and poverty has been mass
ed by aGroit politicians upon one side.
The attempt to continue for even four
years longer such state of things as Gen
eraI Grant has, by federal force, main
tanned in Louisiana would either cause
a necessary and entirely justifable revolt
or totally destroy society. There are
scores of parishes and counties where the
colored voters are to the whites as four,
six, eight, and even ten to one; where,
therefore, ignorant men, without prop
erty, and with no selfrestraint or sense
of honor in pecuniary trusts, would con-
tinue to rule absolutely; to levy taxes
which others must pay; to elect judges
and fiduciary officers out of their own
number; to be the tools of the least
scrupulous and the most greedy wretches
in the community. There are to-day
scores of parishes and counties in Louisi-
ana, Alabama and Mississippi, where the
voice of the people is not the voice of
God, but the voice of the worst thief in
the community.
But the moment the color line is broken
the conditions of the problem are essen
TALLY changed. Brains and honesty have
once more chance to come to the top.
The negro, whose vote will be important
to both parties, will find security in that
fact No politician will be so silly as to
encroach upon his rights, and the black
man appears to me to have sense of re-
spectability which will prevent him, en-
couraged by demagogues, from trying to
force himself into positions for which he |
is unfit He will have his fair chance,
and he has no right to more.
V. 1t will always help him that he is
industrious. Free labor is an undoubted |
success in the South The negro works ; |
he raises cotton and corn, sugar and rice,
and it is infinitely to his credit that he
continues to do 50, and according to the
universal testimony works more steadily |
and effectively this year than ever before
since 1865, in spite of the political hurly-
burly in which he has lived for the last
ten years. Nor ought we of the North |
to forget that part of the credit of the
negroes industry to-day is due to the
Southern planters, who have been wise
enough to adapt themselves to the ire
mendous change in their labor system,
and honest enough not to discourage the
ignorant free laborer by wronging him of
his earnings or driving unjust bargains
with him. The system of planting on
shares, which prevails in all the cotton
region have seen, appears to me admi-
rable in every respect. 1t tends to make
the laborer independent and self-helpful
by throwing him on his own resources. |
He gets the reward of his own skill and |
industry and has the greatest motive to
impel him to steadfast labor and to self /
denial. / have satisfied myself, too, that |
the black man gets, wherever l have
been, fair share of the crop he makes.
If anywhere he suffers wrong it is at the
hands of the small farmers, who cultivate |
a thin soil, and are themselves poor and |
generally ignorant 1t is a curious evil |
dence of the real security of the negro, |
even in the rudest parts of the South, |
that many thousands of them have en-
igrated from Alabama and Georgia into |
the YaZoo Bottom in Mississippi and into
the cotton regions of Arkansas and Lou
isiana-parts of the South where, if We
might believe the general reports which |
have been spread through the North, no
Negroes rights or life are safe.
THE coLoRED PEOPLE NOT THRIFTY.
VI. The black laborer earns enough, |
but he does not save his money. In the
heart of the cotton country negro de- |
pending on his own labor alone, with the |
help of his wife in the picking season,
may live and have from S75 to S125 |
clear money in hand at the close of the |
season. If he has several half grown |
boys able to help him in the field, he may
support his family during the year and
have from $175 to $3.50 clear money at
the years end. Few laborers as igno-
rant as the average plantation negro can
do as we'll anywhere in the world. Of
course he lives poorly; but he thrives on
corn meal and bacon, and has few doc
tors bills to pay. Unfortunately, as yet,
he commonly spends his money like a
sailor or a minor or any other IMPROVE |
dent white man. Very few lay by their
earnings; yet the deposits in the Freed |
mems Bank showed how very considerable |
we're the savings of the few. and | am
sorry to say that the criminal misman-
agement of this trust has struck serious |
blow on the South, for it has given a
fresh impetus to the spendthrift habits of |
the blacks They have as yet far less
desire to own farms than l hoped to |
find. They are, like almost all rude |
people, fond of owning an acre or house
lot and in Southern towns and cities it
ia common to find them such owners.
But a comparatively small number, as
vet. are freeholders in the best sense of
the word. This however, viii come with
time. They have been free but ten years,
and in that time have been unsettled by
the stress of politics, and have scarcely
known, until within the last two years,
whether their freedom was a substantial
fact, or only a pleasant dream. More
over, they have, very naturally, enjoyed
/ r Il - ard