National Republican., 1878-12-25
EnrAL FREEDOM or AFFECT si,vEry

EnTAL FREEDOM OK AFFECT SLAVERY.
There are in the late Save states i,O0n,Opn
Of our lcllow-citzcns recently raised from
the thrdldom of the slavc-pcn and auction
block to the freedom of the ballot box and
the writ Of h,J,rs corpus These rights
freedom, citizenship. suffrage, and equal
protection of all the laws-wcre conferred
upon the late slaves by the nations action.
The words of the nation comforting these
rights stand embodied in the Fed ,ral Com
stitution, commanding obedience of all who
acknowledge allegiance TO that COnstitu-
tion. And there they will stand supreme
over all until abrogated by threc-iOurths of
the States, or until some Of the States shall
cease to yield iealty and allegiance TO that
Constitution. The emuncipated and en-
lranchiscd race are the nations wards. And
the nation will sec TO ii that that race he
free to exercise those rights and enjoy those
privileges without let or hindeIancc from
their late task.ma5ters. And it il safe to
assert that the vehicle through which the
nation proposes TO vindicate these violated
amendments Is the present organized Re
publican party. And, under present ap-
pearanccs that the man which that party
proposes to select to lead the oppressed race
into secure and uninterrupted enjoyment
OF all those rights and privileges, Is he who
was mainly instrumental in making it pos
siblc that they might be conferred by the
United States instead Of that the wrongs
and opprcssons which they were intended
to correct should be perpetrted by the Con-
ledcratc States Of America 1t is only an
act of supcrcrogation to name General
GRANT in this connection.
1t is now many years since the Southern
slaves were endowed with freedom, citizen
ship, and suffrage, and yet today VIC find
them, to some extent, the political, u they
were formerly, the personal, vassals Of the
Southern whites. What step have the
Southern whites taken in all these years to
elevate the freedmen and tit them for their
high and responsible position as citizens and
sullIagans of great EcpublicF Was tho
closing of the public schools all over the
South intended to prevent the rising gcncr-
alton of colorcd people from acquiring that
knowledge and intelligence, the absence ot
which is the only defect in their title rs the
peer Of the proudcst white man? Was this
proceeding upon the assumption that race
fit for slaves will not long remain free Z
The present abnormal condition OF affairs
in the South cannot continue. The African
race, dOmicied unwillingly among us, must
either move forward to an enlightened state
of equality to the whites, or revert to their
former condition Of servitude
Do the southern people still deny the
equality of the races? Has the popular
sentiment in the South undergone any
change on this question since ALEXANDER
II. STEPHENS, lOn his return home from
Montgomery, where he had been chosen
Vice President of the COnledeTacy,J in q
speech at Savannah, cxpounded the South
ern theory of slavery? This speech is re-
ported in GREELEY's American Conflict,
with these quotations mainly in italic:
The new constitution has put at rest forever
all the agitating questions relating TO our pc.
culiar imstitutium--AfriCau slavery, rs 1t exist,
among us--the proper status Of the negro iu
our form Of civilization. This was the iume.
! diate cause Of the late rupture and the present
revolution. JETFEI.sOS, IN his forecast had
anticipated this rs the rock upon which the
| old Union would split
| The prevailing ideas entertained by him aud
| most Of the leading statesmen at the time o
| the formation of the old Constitution were
| that the enslavemcnt of tho African was IN
violation Oi naturei that 1t was wrong in