The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1876-03-10
HIS OPPORTUNITY.

i HIS OPPORTUNITY.
4 Pinchback has now . good chance to Civ
colored voters Of the South some excellent I'd
vice e. to their duties a. citizens and voters
In blood he Is q good deal more white maj
than he is negro. In education he has learnet
fifty ideas from white men where he ha
learned one from negroes. The language he
speaks il the white mans language. Thu
civilization which he sees around him and
which he in part enjoys, is the legacy Of forty
generations Of white men, to which the
Ethiopian has not contributed at all He
is an intelligent man, and he doubtless knows
his true relation to the State and to the Re-
public. He is citizen, because the amended
Constitution makes him so. He is voter,
because he is declared to be so by the funda-
mental law of the State, which ought to be the
declaration Of the will of the people, although
it is not 80 in fact He has held high posi-
tons BY virtue Of what ought to have been but
never was, free and fair vote Of the people
Pinchback has an intimate knowledge of
the relations Of the negroes to the Radical
Republican party and to the State. He
knows, as we'll as any colored man can know,
how much and how little ought to be de-
handed by them on one side, and how much
ought to be conceded to them on the other.
By intelligence, by experience and by OBJ
servation, he is as we'll prepared Is any man
Of his race to define the just and true position
of the voting negro in the public affairs Of
the nation. No colored man, from the Poto-
mao to the Rio Grande, can form an estimate
moro practical, sensible and just of the posi-
ton and duty Of the negro citizens Of the
Southern States. He is by personal choice
one of them and identified with them. He
has been honored by them, and he now
enjoys their trust and confidence as their
representative and exponent.
Pinchback is coming home. When he ar
rives he will be received not as . discounted
and overthrow combatant, but as . conquer
ing chief and champion. Admiring throngs
will greet him, and he will be escorted to
his home with flying banners, glaring torch
lights, . long and noisy procession and the
blare and rattle of horns and drums. Then
or afterwards he will make speech, relating
his experience and giving his advice.
Here will be Pinchback's opportunity. He
may regard the treatment he has received at
Washington as matter purely personal to
himself, or he may take it as an index of the
feeling Of tho white portion Of the Radical
Republican party towards his race. He may
counsel colored voters to submit to the in
dignity which they have endured through
him as their representative, or he may advise |
hem to take that rebuff as signi-
acant of the low estimation in which
the colored element of the Republican
party is held ct Washington, and among
white Northern Radicals in general Here is
! chance for Pinchback to rise above all per-
'onal feeling, and to enlighten his colored
,ountrymen as to their true relations to the
'nce triumphant but now corrupt. decaying
md moribund Radical dynasty Here is an
for new departure for the
negro voters OF Louisiana, who form more
han nineteen twentieths of the Republican
party Of the State, but who enjoy scarcely a
enth part Of the honors, Offices, emoluments
md spoils won by their votes. It is in his
,ower to become the chief and guide in q |
yreat independent movement of Southern
,olored voters that will leave all the white
Radical rascals out in tho cold, and
t the same time secure more of solid
advantages to- themselves as citizens than
hey can possibly win by any other course.
RADICAL influence has been the cause Of i'm
measurable damage to the oolored people of
louisiana and Of all the Southern States. 1t
3 time that they had learned that their true
velfare can no longer be hoped for under the
'aneful shadow of the now dominant party.
hey can withdraw from it, throw off their
llegiance and act for their own welfare under
eaders of their own choice, and in this grand
xodus of independence Mr. Pinchback can
make himself their guide and chief if he will.