The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1876-02-17
THE NEGRO IN POLITICS.

THE NEGRO In POLITICS.
4 Revolt Foreshadowed
The emphatic declarations Of Bruce, colored
Senator from Mississippi, and Pinchback,
colored claimant from Louisiana, respecting
the rights of their race to recognition and
representation, are among the current signif.
cant facts which can not be permitted to pass
without notice. Inasmuch as negro voters
have adhered steadily and zealously to the
Republican party, giving their SURFACES in all
cases without hesitation or inquiry in favor Of
Republican candidates, it is the conviction of
their leaders that they ought to have a voice,
an influence and consideration proportioned
to their numbers. Negro voters have given
to Congress number of white Representa-
tives and Senators, by whose votes and infu-
ence the Radical cause has been very greatly
strengthened. The white congressman Gre
ated by negro votes have been useful to their
party in q remarkable manner, on account of
their restitution of scruples and their readi
ness in inventing stories as to pretended
abuses of negroes by the whites. They have
been placed in the vanguard of the legions
who march under the flaming banner
OF the bloody shirt. In the place
of their temporary residence they have
possessed 10 confidence of the better class OF
resident whites, but when fraudulently re-
turned and seated in Congress by an assum ed
party majority, they have taken front seats
and put on all the airs Of political aristocrats.
They have been made the dispensers Of the
patronage of their respective States and OF
the funds supplied for political purposes.
Their negro constituents contemplated their
creations of great men out of small materials,
first with pride, next with envy, and latterly
with no small amount of discomfort and dis
gust. With something short Of half mil
lion of voters they have been the creators of
multitude Of white congressman and
much greater multitude Of white Office
holders who have grown rich and saucy out
Of their salaries, fees and populations, all
coming out of the taxes towards which. negro
labor largely contributes. But when they
own race who have been thus promoted, they
find the number signi6cant-barsly enough |
in Congress to afford the Radicals plausible |
evidence that the political rights of negroes are
recogpized-bsrely enough at home to ap-
pease0 few of the uneasy, discontinued and |
clsmorous. They find themselves the poor,
deluded tools Of white politicians. They dis.
cover that they have BEEN cajoled by the men
who have mounted into lofty and lucrative po-
sitions over their shoulders. Colored voters
Of the Republican party are numerous as for
est leaves, bu. colored officials are few and in
significant.
In the opinion Of the shrewder class of ne
yroes, like Bruce and Pinchback, the time
has nearly come when the men Of their race
will be no longer content to serve as mere
aewers Of wood and drawers Of water for
white place-holders. They begin to claim as
he fruit Of their political equality that they
'hall be represented by men of their own
ace. Oilers, equally shrewd but honestly
anxious for the future of their race, begin to
'ee that negro voters have been greatly in en-
or in arraying themselves in solid opposition
o their white neighbors, between whom and
he negroes there are, and must always be,
many ties of common interest. They
eel that they have been drawn astray
y their own indamed and extravagant senti-
aents, which artfal Misrepresentation and
unning fattezy have kept in false and un-
latursl condition of excitement They have
esolved to be the mere beasts Of burden for
7hite politicians no longer, and they will in
ime convert the colored masses to their opin-
On and resolution. This is Q reactionary
aovement in popular colored sentiment
'hich must soon begin to have its effects at
be ballot-box.
The initial prestige Of the Republican party s
nth emancipated and enfranchised negroes d
} we'll remembered and thoroughly under
TODD. That influence, under q waning en- 9
husiasm, would have survived for long r
eriod If the representatives of the party had d
reserved any considerable degree OF integrity
nd political fair dealing. The want of these :
tributes has been apparent everywhere, and
specially conspicuous in the Southern States,
here the whites have been the victims and :
ae blacks the tools of grasping and
npudent usurpers. Radical intruders
ave rushed on towards their fate
nd the time will soon come when
le places which knew, fed and fattened
lem, will know them no more. Yet there
lust still survive among colored voters a Il
~se h15 - - - |
ave more or less of influence with them for p
lany years. The oaths and secret bonds of
leir present well-drilled organizations will r,
Q forgotten long before the majority Of u
lem cease to call themselves Republicans" t.
at the time is coming, and that sooner than g
ii x,T xrho