Helena weekly herald. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1867-1900, 1878-11-28
BLAINE ON THE SOLID SOUTH.
The Great Strength Acquired by the
south Through the Acknowledgement
of the Negroes, and their Exclu-
sion from Political Power.

Extract from his Speech at Philadelphia
We have been told for some time past by a
certain class of political thinkers and teachers
that the southern question was definitely set
tied, and that patriotic duty required that its
agitation be stopped and the whole people
allowed to unite in fraternal embrace and
congratulations over the removal of all cause
of discord. The remedy of silence in the
North has, am sure, been we'll tried during
the years 1877 and 1878. This year we have
been engaged almost wholly in the considera-
ton of our finances, and the most radical
among US have made but incidental reference
to any other subject. Is the result satisfac-
tory? Are matters in the South progressing
as patriotic, fair-dealing men must desire
Let US see. There is in the Southern States q
colored population amounting to well nigh
five millions, all entitled to suffrage on the
same terms as the whites. To these States
there are apportioned thirty-fve representa-
tives in Congress and thirty-fve Presidential
electors by reason of their negro population.
The political strength of the great State of
New York in the North is offset by the
colored population of the South. And yet
this very population, by virtue of whose
numbers this great political strength is as
signed to the South, is rigidly excluded from
all effective participation in its privileges,
and the entire 5.OOO,OO of colored people
will probably be unable this year to elect a
single Representative IN Congress, even in
the States of South Carolina and Mississippi,
where the colored men largely outnumber the
white men. The result will probably be a
unanimous Democratic delegation in Con-
gress. By peryersity of construction and
refinement of cruelty, the colored men are
used only to give additional political power to
the very class and to the very party whose
principles and whose practice they have
most cause to dread. By destroying the
political power of the negro, the white men
in these States vastly increase their influence,
and in the two States have named the con-
federate soldier is to-day casting two votes in
the control of our national policy, when the
Union soldier in Pennsylvania and. New
England casts but one. With this state of
things the American people will not rest con-
tent. 1t is rankly unjust, not only to the
colored man in the South, but to the white
man in the North, and we will be compelled
in the end from self-interest and self-protec-
ton to resort to that which at the outset we
should have resorted to from principle. In
all the great financial and economic contests
of the future the North cannot and will not
permit the hostile Democratic power of the
South to be doubled by trampling under foot
the rights of colored citizens. Suffrage was
not gwen as mockery. and the people of
the United States will see the rights conferred
are rights enjoyed; and if they fail to see
that they will in the end find that the liberty
of one class of citizens cannot be trampled on
without endangering the liberties of all