The Stark County Democrat. [volume] (Canton, Ohio) 1833-1912, 1876-10-19

A month ago L saw them raising q Re
publican flag in one of the strongest anC
most combative Democratic counties il
Kentucky in the midst of a good hnmor
ed crowd of their antagonists. | have
talked with scores OF blacks, and in Tie
confidence begotten of life around 9
campfire have had theirstatements made
with the knowledge that was from the
North, and have never yet heard {
complaint of oppression growing ont o
political causes. AS rule, they trust tc
the courts of law, an |, have full conf
dence in the justice and good will o.
their late masters.
The organizations of regulators" {
very useful thing in the proper time and
place, which grew up in the South after
the war, became in many instances ar
instrument of horrible ontrages on the
blacks From carefulinquiry am sat
is6ed that this abuse of what was intend
ed as an instrument for the repression Of
crime and the preservation of order in 6
community in which the law had not vel
reasserted its majesty, never received the
sympathy,and support of the better class
of Southerners. Recent experience in
Pennsylvania and southern Illinois, has
shown that in Northern State densely
peopled, and in society whose founda.
tions have not been ,upturned by the
throes of defeat in bloody civil war
a small band of scoundrels may and
do escape the clutch Of the law even
longer than did the Ku-Klux oil Ken
tucky. Three years ago that organization
was stamped out in that State by the Off
GERS of the law, supported by an unani-
nous public opinion. The last outrage
was so swiftly followed by punishment
that its perpetrators heard the doors OF
the State Prison close behind them with
in fortnight of their breach of law. AT
the present moment am convinced that
the four Democratic States Of the South
that have mentioned are as orderly,
that the rights of the individual, regard
less of color, are as s9fe, and that the aC-
cord between the several elements Of
their population is as perfect as in any
equal area of the North, This will no
doubt be rejected by many as an incredi-
Bile proposition, but it is made deliberate
ly. and expresses belief that has grown
against previous conviction.
As to the safety of the political rights
of the negro and the cause of the sudden
change in their vote during the late cleo
tons there is naturally in the North
much distlusi; but very little thought
will, believe, remove this anxiety and
perhaps account for the change In
Kentucky there is no attention paid to
the negro vote; most of it is thoroughly
venal, and its effect on the politics there
has been individually corrupting, Such
a thing as intimidation have never seen
or heard of in either the border States
except, perhaps at the navy yard at Nor
folk, and tits probably within the bounds
of truth to say that there is more cor
rnption practiced by the general govern
ment in the city of Boston alone than in
the States of Kentucky, Tennessee and
North Carolina combined. After patient
waiting for his "mule and forty acres of
land" after buying bogus titles and pay.
ing for colored stakes sold by swindlers
as the appointed devices of the Govern
ment for marking the bounds of the land
it was to give him after y thousan d
forms OF swindle, from the Freedmen's
Bank to the regoeries of an army of
swindlers who have cheated him; while
they gathered a catalogue of outrages for
Northern consumption, is it any wonder
that the black laborer, like many OF his
workmen in the North has come to look
at the source of his weekly wage as tie
surest support he has on the world ?
Those of them who have accumulated
property are in sympathy with the war
which property is making upon the hests
of thievish adventures that, under the
name of Republicanism, have dragged
the South to ruin; whilst the rest, no
longer fearing for their liberties, can be
hired, as was done in Mississippi on any
election day, for double wages, to stay at
home, and pick cotton or plant corn in
stead of going to the polls. The TRUTHS,
that the negro is growing out of the hands
of the im9udent tricksters, who with a
rattling chain in one hand and promise
of ease in the other, have led him to
serve their plundering purposes. Out of
the class of ignorant, shiftless blacks
there is coming up a surprisingly large
class of industrious, decent and saving
people, eagerly desirous Of improving
their mental and material conditions,
and who see very plainly that if they
would keep step with the whites they
must adopt their methods. Beginning
with initiating the language and manners
of their late masters, they are fast learn
ing the fact that community of interests
levels all artificial distinctions. Political
publication is with them step forward
in the social scale, and nothing short of
insanity could suggest the idea of pre-
venting it. There are many people in
the Ncrth,s so many indeed that their
number will probably decide the coming
contest, who have never seeu Confed-
crate soldier, and who couture up in their
minds dreadful picture of the sanguin-
ary creature who brought so much woe
on the land. 1t will unfortunately, be
an easy tQsk to make this large and re-
spectacle class believe that the South is
not conquered, and thatthe cessation of
the conflict is to the Confederates mere
truce for the binding of their wounds
and the burial of their dead. Knowing,
as | have, hundreds of those who fought
in the rebel army, from commanders
down to privates, bound to many by ties
of friendship and of blood, such as would
make conCealment of purposes simply
having, as believe, accurate
knowledge of the present animus of the
old Confederate soldiers, do not hesi-
tate to declare that the South has unre-
abandoned the objects for
which she fought. The possibility of a |
separation by the act of war, orSpeaceful
agreement is never suggested among
them. In fact it has come to be proverb |
that the men who talks of another re.
Dellion stayed at home in the last one."
The struggle hereafter on the part of the
South will be to develop her industries
and to guard and protect her homes and
his she will do by tongue and pen, and at
he ballot-box, but never again by the
,word During this year and the last she
has raised crops representing at least one
hird more labor than any before the war;
Sue is diversifying herindustries and OIL
yanizing her labor in every way, and it
s submitted that this is not the attitude