The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1876-11-23
HOW TO ACCOUNT FOR EXTR or.
DINARY RESULTS IN LOUISIANA
AND MISSlSSIPPE. s..s-


The average value of "loyal" votes
throughout the South Is now est;m1ted to
be not more than 25 cents. In portions Of
Mississippi q red bandana must be given
to each of the female members of the fam
lily. Now that Grant is out of the way,
and the conviction slowly fastens itself
upon the reasoning faculties of the average
African that Democracy never proposed and
could not be induced to Le-establish negro
slavery, he is only concerned about the
moneyed val1e of the ballot. Grant in
herited and wore, in the negro's eyes, the
moral vestments and attributes of Abraham
Lincoln; but Grant has no heirs and made
no special bequests, and in recent elections,
for the first time, the negroes voted with
share of freedom from those heavy clank
ing shackles imposed by Lincoln's benef-
cence and Grants glory. The conduct of
the negroes has been somewhat extraordi-
nary. They knew nothing of Hayes or
Wheeler, or of Tilden or Hendricks, and
among these had no choice. From fixed
habits in political action, where no effort
was made by Democrats to disrupt their Or
CARNATIONS, they have voted as instructed
by their white leaders; but wherever any
serious and well-dlrected effort was made
by the white people to control the negroes,
there has been, IN no instance, an outright
failure. In densely-populated negro dis
trin Of ha 1aa in
compact masses have been marching and
voting under Democratic banners, and
though the negroes in that Africanized
commonwealth outvote the whites by 25,
000.or 80, GOO, the Democratic majority will
be so, 900 or more. The same results almost
,upervened in South Carolina. But Grant
came in the persons of his soldiers, and
Grants decree and the trappings of war
and martial music swept the tide of African
sympathies backward into the old channels,
and Hampton and Tilden have hardly car
ried the State. The Republicans did not
buy these ftcile voters in South Carolina,
but the moral effect of music and of the
pOmp and circumstance of war, and this
hySical manifestation of Grants will oper-
ated as bribe and South Carolina was al
most lost. II Grant had sent his treasurer
into South Carolina and bought the votes
of tie blacks at twenty-five cents each, the
moral aspect of the transaction would be I'M
changed, the result the same, the cost to
the people IN money less and popular re-
spect fol the government would be greater
than to day.
This withdrawal of Grant from the po-
litiCal arena is the deathknell of Radical
absOlutism in negro governed States and
districts of the South. We see the conse
sequence of Hayes's substitution for the
.ro- president, as an object of African idol
airy, IN the utter disruption of Radical So
lidity ana power in wide districts aud jun
g,eI of the lowlands of Louisiana. The
people would be amazed and the event as
cribsd to violence and terrorism if the cause
had not operated everywhere with like re-
>ults in every negro-governed county in the
South. Never before have the blacks
yielded wherever the effort has been made
to caj0le or conciliate, to solicitations or
wiles or to any proffered inducements to
vote with the white people. The reason is
found in facts here assigned. and Butler
and Ke logg and Morton must look for
other causes for this African revolution
than those illustrated by Blaine when he
flsunts the bloody shirt in the faces of the
people.
Grant wore the mantle of Lincoln and is
god in the. eyes of African superstition.
But Hayes was not adorned with sauctified
vestments' disturbed not many nights ago
when Lincoln's tomb was violated, and if
the dead patriot, while he lived, proclaimed
Africa free, his party executed the bond
and emancipation was perfected whc n
Hayes, instead of Grant, was made cane j.
date for the presidency. 1t is too late to
correct the bluzder. The strangeness OF
results in negro parishes in Louisiana are
natural results of those partisan necessities
which compelled the substitution of Hayes
| for Grant as a candidate for the presidency
Such results would not have affected the ac-
tion of white men and white votes, but the
negro is not and never will be white man.