The daily gazette., 1875-02-17
From the Baltimore Sun. ''-f2t
AdmOnftiOn OF the COlorea Raee.

In an article on the civil rights hill
the Chicago Tribune, now a pronomncad I
Republican paper, has some admonitorv
coinments upon the circular issued n
atort time ago by such representative
colored men as Frederick Douoloss
langston, and Pinchback, in which thew
said in effect that they must have ths
ciYil rights bill. or they would be forced
to the alternative OF either Joining the
Democratle party or adopting a policy Of
retaliation and revenge. The Tribune
says 1t shall rejoice if the final adoption
OF me measure shall relieve them from
s'ch an alternative. For ourselves. we
looked upon the words Of these colored
leaders as simply idle, for there was not
iikeiy 10 90 any question about "alterna.
s,vhs v IN the case. Whatever truculent
white politicians, seeking to maintain
their own and their party ascendancv
shall give the colored people: they viii
OF course take, whether i ba of praetical
good for them or not. So that they can
De LED, for the time being, to think il il
for their good that will be enough. But
II these things are not given them thew
will go without them. The race is not n
heloic one, but generally amiable. and OF
great utility under proper and intelligent
direction while they have the sustaining
intiaence OF the white race and hence
is not likely to strike either in retaiia.
ton or revenge. What our Republican
Chicago contemporary adds. however,
coming as 1T does from one of the most
intelligent Republican counsellors of the
colored people, Is worth quoting for their
benefit. as follows;
The policy of retaliation and revenge
with the bitterness which the words p~dsITo ;n
dicate. it might result in the extermina.
tion OF the whole negro race, Al all
events, ITS inauguration by them would
plunge the colored people of the South
INTO desolation and desperation They
could not hope to cope with the whites,
who far outnumber them, in a war of
races AS the weaker race, the more
ignorant, the poorer, the less accustomed
to deadly weapons, they would suffer
tenfold the injury they could possibly he
able to intiict on their opponents. Even
during the war of the rebellion. whom
the great bulk OF the white males of the
South were Mt the front, the negroes were
unable to organize at home any aid for
the Union cause andEtheir own until the
Union armies reached Them Since the
war, whenever the negroes and whites
nave come IN open conflict, the killed
and wounded among the blacks have
been forty to one among the whites. In
a declared war of races and without
any intervention on the part of the North
it would be almost as easy for the South.
ern whites to exterminate the Southern
blacks as it would be for the men of the
North to exterminate their women and
children, If they set out to do it. II is
supreme folly for the negroes to talk of
revenge and retaliation"
True, every word of it, and hence how
wicked, though imbecile, are the words
referred to of Douglass, Langston 4 CO.
We have said the negro race is NOT a.
heroic one. The negroes of the South.
in keeping with their generally amiabIe
character-and by the natural law of the
submission OF the inferior to the super
ior when the latter SO will--remained
faithful and quiet in the service of those
through whom the race had the secured
the only improvement and advancement
that hadtever come to it in the world
history mp to the late war. The persons
by whose agency their moral and physi-
cal well-being was thus promoted were
Southern people, Who had become their
masters under the African slave system
which had grown up on this continent
through the cupidity OF the European
and Yankee slaye-traders of the past
who, seeing the poor savages in their
native wiids, had transported them to
this land and sold them for money into
the hands OF Christian people.
These rulers of the Africans, who to a
considerable extent had become such in
opposition to their own earnest protests
and remonstrances, so discharged the
responsibilities which they had incurred
by utilizing the slaves and teaching them
industry as well Us something Of the
principles and. ideas OF their own reli
gious faith. that most OF them had been
brought out of Iarbarism to recogni
tion of Christianity and to that degree
OF Improvement which the war found
them-many already voluntarily, ,emanei-
pated. sone wealthy, and large numbers
well-to-do, and increasing in intelligence.
Yet it Is Il fact the negro race, for whose
Improvement all good men of every race.
and especially the whites of the South
are most solicitous, never secured any.
thing to itself by what is commonly re-
garded as heroic action, such action as
requires an intelligent conception of the
ways and means to great results, the
power of combination. the fortitnde to
execute. and individual self-sacriflce.
The negro has always gone with the de
fdcto government, whatever that might
be. He has never climbed to the TOD by
his own unaided energy. but if white
men put him there he will remain till he
falls off. We say this in no spirit Of dis
paragement or unfriendliness, but the
very contrary. And the facts that we
mention will be recognized by oil right
thinking minds as establishing the claims
of the colored people to the sympathy
and the aid of the whole white race, now
that the former have. through the prori-
dence of God. become frecmen.