The Jackson standard. [volume] (Jackson C.H., Ohio) 1847-1888, 1876-04-06
From the independently
The Stake in America.
NY JAMES REDPATH.

1he whites OF the Southern States,
since the close of the rebellion, have
made systematic or. at least. spasmodic
efforts to induce capitalists and emf
grants to settle in their country"
They have not succeeded. Plows and
dollars have gone from the North but
they have soon gone back again. With
q climate that equals the poetentrancing
cline of Italy; with farmlands fertile,
cheap, untitled, and inviting; with the
noblest rivers on this continent; with
mines full of coal and iron and other
precious treasures; with good harbors on
the coast; and with water-powers inland
that now run night and day for some one
to teach them TO convert cotton into
cloth-with every agency and every op-
portunity for creating wealth and invit-
ing population, still the South lies silent,
desolate; and still the migratory classes,
that are building up States in the West,
pass her by on the other side and refuse
to 90 to her relief, for they see not a
wounded Samaritan, but lurking ban
dit.
Thousands Of negroes and northern
men and southern white Republicans
have been slain i'm cold blood in the
southern States since General Lee sur
rendered his sword. Their only crime
was loyalty to the nation and to the par
ty that saved ID. This is q CHASTITY accu-
sation but no fact in modern history is
sustained by stronger proofs. No north
ern man is welcomed In the South il he
believes in the principles of the Repub-
lican party and votes and acts in accord
ance with his creed. He 10 ostracised in
society and in business by the native
whites. 1t is only when-as the negro 10
told to do, and in the same servile sense
he ATTENDS TO his business and lets
politics alone" that he is safe and toler-
ated by the dominant class. or course,
no manly American submits to such con-
ditions. He quickly chooses one of two
courses. He takes part with the black,
and 10 denounced as a "carpet-bagger;"
or he straightway sells out and leaves
the South forever. And yet the south
ern property holder wonders why he can
not rent or sell his land at the prices
that they ought to bring. and could read
lily command If the same treatment that
the ex-rebel receives in the North was
extended to the loyalist when be settles
in the South.
But this is not the sole cause of the
desolation of the South A perennial
spring OF poverty is the barbarism of her
lower orders; their utter lawlessness,
which at times becomes so terrible that
no evidence save their own testimony
could induce the world to believe even
in its existence. We picked up to-day
two southern papers-one the Texas
Galveston News and the other the Texas
Norton's Union Intelligencer-and find
in both illustrations OF the spirit which
drives capital and population from the
South.
The Galveston News mentions that
nd D..l
waylaid and killed on Iris Creek, Texas.
while out with his team gathering fire.
wood. He was the principal witness
against the Ku-Klux prisoners arraigned
before the United States Court in May
last"
This has been the fate OF scores of 9TH
ers for testifying even to the existence OF
outrages. Thus is lawlessness rendered
omnipotent in the State But Texas is
no worse than the other Gulf States in
respect of whippings, murders, and as.
sassinations. There was one step further
to be taken, and she has taken it and
she now stands pre-eminent in diabolism.
Before the war the hideous crime of
burning men alive was not unknown;
but 1t was not common in the southern
States. Mr.. A. d. Richardson, we re-
member, in O letter to the Tribune.
least dozen instances of this crime had
occurred, and the present writer once
heard southern mechanic describe the |
burning of q negro at the stake with a |
graphic power that no sympathy for the |
victim disturbed. We had hoped that |
the abolition of slavery would obliterate |
even the possibility of such crime. But |
IL seems that we must continue (unless /
the power of national opinion rouses the |
state into selfdefensive action) to hear
OF these atrocities for generation to
come. If there are communities in our
country 30 degraded as to permit such
crimes, we owe it to civilization to draw
a moral quarantine around them If the
respectable classes become parties to
such crimes by refusing to prosecute the
perpetrators of them. they must share
the scorn and horror with which the
whole civilized world regards them.
We summon therefore, the State of
Texas to the bar OF the public opinion of
to answer for the crime of
burning a man alive at the stake near
cameron, in Milan county. The crime
las been committed within q month.
md no steps have been taken yet to pun
sh the authors of it,
The story 10 told in Nortons Union
ntelligencer of Feb. 5th. This paper is
published at Dallas City, Texas. The &C.
ount appears to have been copied from
mother State journal
Mr.. j. M. Baker, O small farmer of !
Bell county, on returning from Rockdale,
vas followed. murdered, and robbed of c
hirty.6ve dollars by a negro named a
Williams. The murderer was arrested, {
ried, and convicted within ten or twelve
ays. He was sentenced to be hanged
N the following Friday. There seems a
0 have been no doubt as to his guilt, 9
nd there was no doubt whatever as to 7
is fate. The sheriff had him ironed
nd put in the rear cage" of "one of the
lost secure prisons in the State"
And now let the southern writer tell X
ne sickening story in his own words:
"The sheriff has pledged his word the prison.
shall be executed. He retires after night to
Ia home, leaving the keys OF the cages In the
ands OF the Jniler and guards, who are station -
In the corridors about the cages. The doors
% bolted.
"At i've minutes past twelve, at night, a large
imber OF persons, including several youths
lder age, surround the jail quietly. They
me TO the door and knock, to attract the at =,
ntion OF the guards within. Their presence
noticed, and they are asked to go away.
ley demand that the doors be opened or they
III tear them down. The guards consult, and
% OF them are talking about what they shall
when the man In charge Of the front-doog
ys unlocks IL. They enter and the cage keys
or, entering"
n = Al :