The weekly Union times. [volume] (Union C.H., South Carolina) 1871-1894, 1877-05-18
A CRIME AND ITS CONSEQUENCES.
This from the New York Tribune

policy has not only been curse to the
whites, but it has been curse to the freed
people for whose benefit it was adopted
1t has not made them good citizens. 1t has
not taught them how to use the ballot. II
has introduced among them dcmoraliza-
tion more dangerous to the country than the
violence of the White League, for no Re-
publican government can stand which is not
founded upon the suffrage of the virtuous
and intelligent"
One would think from the tone of the
above extract that the views embodied
therein were entirely original, just evolved
from the experience and observation of n
school of social philosophers. The fact is
they are at least twelve years old, and have
been given over and oyesx again by every
Dsmocratic PAPER and elsfy Z Democratic
speaker in the country. The utter failure
of the reconstruction policy was predicted
at the outset, and the prediction has been
repeated at each stage of the wretched game;
but not until the last vestige of that policy
is disappearing amid the execrations of a
Disguised people, do we find the Republican
organs willing to acknowledge what all the
world knows.
Duo ChS oOIleWDuC III au-
vance of the rest of its tribe, is as yet un-
willing to confess that the act on which the
reconstruction policy is based was blunder
so inexcusable and so disastrous that it
amounts to gigantic crime. The more the
fifteenth amendment is contemplated in the
light of subsequent events, the more appar-
ent does its insane folly become. A race
upon which nature has stamped the indeli-
bic mark of intellectual inferiority, and
whose original barbarism had been supple
meDted by two centuries of hereditary. sla-
very, is lifted at nuce to the falleaeas1ro0f 0f
citizenship. No preliminary preparation,
no probation, no education-nothing that
might tend to strip the tremendous expert
meut of any of its dangers. The nation was
literally rushed headlong into peril whose
extent we are only now beginning to realize,
without any opportunity for that thought
full study and calm reflection which should
have preceded q scheme of such vast conse-
quence. For this unnecessary, this fatal
haste, and all the evil esulting thercfrom,
the Republican party IS solely responsible
Perhaps small portion of the rank and
file may escape on the plea of ignorance,
but no such excuse can avail the leaders,
Not single prominent Republican, who
advocated the immediate enfarnchisement of
the blacks that did not know precisely what
he was about and why he was about
it. He knew what the negroes were in
temperament and character; he knew they
were hopelessly ignorant of the first princi-
plies of politics; that they had not the small,
est comprehension OF the duties pertaining
to citizenship that they were simply grown
up children, who would be controlled and
led by designing men, to their own detri-
ment and the irreparable injury of the coun-
try. Neither William Lloyd Garrison nor
Wendell Phillips, the foremost apostles of
the fifteenth amendment, could be hired to
live in a community where the negroes are
in majority and ruled the whites. Yet
these fanatics and their associates had no
scruples in fastening upon the Southern
people yoke they would not wear them.
selves and now, when that yoke is dropping
off, they insist it shall be again riveted by
bayonets.
Philanthropic considerations had nothing
TSao with the nfranchisemeht of the blacks.
and exclusively sstendsd i S, sAess's
publican supremacy by Republicanixng the
South for all coming time. The Republi-
can leaders did not care whether the me-
groes made good or bad citizens, so long as
they always voted the straight Republican
ticket. Hence the idea, constantly urged
that no negro can possibly cast Democrat
ic ballot except under some kind Of com
pulsion. The truth is that the negro votes
with those whom he thinks will do the most
for him, and consequently is always anxious
to get on the winning side. AS to the is
sues involved in the electiop. he is perfectly
Indifferent, and now that Republican recon
struction has collapsed and carpet-bag power
sunk out of sight, nine-tenths of the coloret
voters Of the South will hencefcrth act will
the Democracy. But though the fifteenth
amendment promises to be valuable rein
forcement of Democratic strength, yet it il
impossible to disguise the fact that th'
wholesale manufacture of African citizens
was calamity, the effects Of which will b.
felt as long as the republic stands. Th'
burden cannot be thrown off, cannot be ma
terially lightened. Heavy as it is, cmbar
RAISING as it is, perilous as it is, it must b.
borne to the end. We have "made our be,
and must lie in it," and our slumbers ar
not likely to bo either peaceful or healthy
The confessions of tho Republican organ
are good enough in their way, but they vii
not take from the shoulders Of the party al
ounce of responsibility. There could hav
been no reconstruction, no carpet. baggery
none Of the innumerable curses that hav
fastened and fed upon the South thes
twelve years past, had it not been for negr
suffrage--nnd negro suffrage is a Republ
can child that will live to vex the America
people long after tho Republican party ha
~..nk To.,.. Doo.,6ys.o,,