The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1877-02-08
THE STATUS OF THE SOUTH.
The Views of Northern Lady.

North, and whose vcracity and capability
of correctly criticising matters that come
under her own observation:
To the Editor of the World-SIR: One
of the worst features of our period is the
general lack of faith among our people.
Such tantalizing muddle has been crea-
ted by reporters, interviewers, kilograms
and newspapers at large that nobody
knows what to believe, and all settle
down to care-for nothing skepticism
utterly destructive to the well-being OF
society. The good old times when a
mans word was as good as his bond ;
when lie was unworthy of a gentleman,
to say nothing Of Christian; when Off
cial fraud condemned man to the out
skirts of society if not to the prison ;
when the Judge on the bench was expec-
ted to be like Casar's wife, above suspi-
cion-are fading away into the dimness
of tradition or the obscurity of myths.
Committees are appointed to meet some
emergency or solve some political prob
lem, and their report leaves us as much
in the dark as before-everybody regards
it as made in the interests of party, and
its statements are received with distrust.
Men supposed venerable for their wisdom
and full-fraught with integrity, can hard
ly make themselves heard for the clamor
of those whose interest it is to make them
ridiculous or doting. Who can the peo-
pie look up to as authority in opinion
when the best among US cater to the fash
ions of the times, and step down from
their pride of place" to contend in the
arena with vilifiers, blackguards and po-
litical tricksters?
1t would seem that nothing could be
easier than to learn the status of the
South, and yet nothing can exceed the
talsehood and Misrepresentation under
which she is banned. Long before the
election in November Northern emissa-
ries were at work endeavoring to stir up
the colored people to acts of aggression.
They were subtle in their movements,
rarely appearing openly, interviewing
colored leader here and there, telling him
how to act, what to say, and making him
promises of aid. The consequence was
that meetings were held at midnight by
the negroes, in some dilapidated quarter
of plantation, and the matter discussed.
These meetings are so frequent that the
fields and forests arc threaded with tracks
leading to them, and these white schem-
ers and renegades meet with them when
they can do so safely. The whole colored
population is leagued force-they COM
bine and modestly act together; but they
are combined as race, not as Republi-
cans, not as politicians. They act in
concert as race. They have no fear OF
tile whites, but they fear each other.
Deny it who will, the colored man scarce
ly feels that he is amenable to the laws;
he has dim feeling that if one of his
kind commit an offence he has a perfect
right to inhict punishment, and these
punishments are often inflicted and i'm
puted to the whites, for they are keen in
their plans to escape detection, retreating
to the swamps when hard beset.
While the colored population is thus
leagued together, the whites do not com
bine-they have no fear of their former
slaves. The work of the carpet-taggers
is not carried on with those who once
owed servitude to the whites of locali-
ty; they operate with the tramp, migra-
tory negro, who has little or no sympathy
with his surroundings, and they tel! him
the whites are determined to remand him
to slavery-that if the Democrats get the
ascendency they will be slaves again, and
every soul of them beat and tortured in
revenge for their having dared to call
themselves free. The poor, ignorant
creatures sometimes believe this, and act
accordingly, but more of them go to their
old masters and learn the true state OF
the case. They have a natural affection
for the locality in which they were raised
and the people with whom they have
been familiar, and the feeling is mutual,
and the old quarters in which they lived
before emancipation are still occupied by
them.
1t is asserted again and again that the
colored people of the South are Republi-
cans, and vote the Democratic ticket from
compulsion. This is not true. l have
never in single instance known a white
man to Interfere with the vote of a col
ored man, but they (the colored people,
are very stringent and bitter with each
other, and if possible conceal their vote.
Even when they hold back till the whites
have voted, as they sometimes do, and go
| in body to the polls, they try to hide
| from each other the nature of the ballot
they have cast. They do this because
they can be punished in various ways by
their own people-by turning them out
of the church, forbidding them to "hold
FORTH" in meetings, and keeping them
out of some coveted employment; and
even-for the negro is naturally timid
and superstitious-threatening him with
what is equivalent to the "evil eye" or
some sorcery akin to it. ,
In the November elections the colored
people did not, as body, vote the Re-
publican ticket-all the whites, except
as the colored leader designated them to
me as the carpet-baggers, scalawags and
rings, voted the Democratic ticket, Great
ing vast and united body, which with
out a shadow of doubt carried every
Southern State. The negroes were not
molested or coerced by the whites; on
the contrary, in North Carolina they
We're invited to join the Tilden clubs, and
fully appreciated the consideration with
which they were treated.
They have long been disaffected with
the Republican party, declaring that they
have not kept faith with them, that they
have made promises of aid to them in
lands, schools, churches, etc, which they
have not redeemed; that they promised
them offices in return for their votes,
while they find no benefit from them in
this way. Hence, they prefer to vote the
ticket that will help the South instead of
helping the North. They say, further,
it is not at all likely the Republican par
ty will ever vote again, thus indicating
no little political sagacity.
Again, it is not true that Southern peo-
pie are opposed to immigration from the
North. They have been maligned by
Northern office-holders, robbed by them,
and misrepresented by them. They arc
naturally repugnant to this class of men,
whom they call carpet-baggers, who are
with them but have no sympathy with
them obtain money and living and