St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1879-06-06
The Unsolved Negro Question.

When we hear that the negroes are
encamped by thousands along the Mis-
sissipDi, that their old owners are
brandishing pistols, dirks and false
writs over their heads, that rivermen
are thrusting the poor wretches off of
their boats (after their passage is paid),
and are actually putting up their ves-
sells for the Summer out of fear of the
planters, we really feel that the good
old times have come back, and that the
war and its issues were but an uneasy
dream. Two doubling ThOmases, late
ly heard from, seem to be of the same
opinion. They began to charter Ohio
River boats to take the negroes to Kan
sas, and then, probably doubling
whether a negro could actually be free
to go where he pleased in this country
or not, and scared by the threats of the
planters to fire upon the boats, they
hurried off to Washington to take the
Presidents advice in the matter, and to
know whether Government would pro-
tect them in Case such attack was made.
Having received the assurance that it
would, they have gone back "tO deliver
those poor creatures from bondage"
Really it seems to us that they might
have saved themselves the trouble of a
journey to Washington the danger
from the planters was not worth so
much consultation. OF course these
men will bully and scare the negroes if
Tney can Uucy nave al Ways round otref.
easy enough to do; and, equally of
course, they eau control Southern
steamboat men, who not only sympa
thize with them but would find it mex
pedient to lose their patronage. That
even SOutherners of prominence are not
above bullying the negroes and the men
who are trying to aid them is shown by
General Chalmers'S absurd and swag
gering letter referred to in our Wash
ington dispatches, advising the Cover
nor of Mississippi to arrest all persons
coming down the river with boats to
to carry the blacks away. But all this
illumination is a very different matter
from firing on boats sent from the North
to transport free men where they choose
to go. Your Mississippi bully knows
that is an overt act of rebellion quite
us well as does President Hayes. He is
loud talker; very loud talker in
deed. But he talked a good many
years before he committed an overt act
of rebellion before, and he never would
haye done it then if he had not thought
he would have backing in the North and
in England. He will be much slower
in his motions now. If the gentlemen
who rushed to see the President about
this matter really mean business, they
may go ahead TRANQUILITY in their good
work Government will not be called
upon to interfere to help them.
But what are they going to do with
these people? We should like to hear
some definite practical plan laid down
beyond their mere removal. 1t will not
do to dump them i'll great masses on
| Western prairies, even if each man is
provided with land to work. The ne
gro always succeeds better when he has
the white man to initiate and to lean
upon. Give them land, but let it be
land in the neighbOrhoOd of white set
Elements. The cOlored man of the
South, as we have said before, has no
higher ambition than to have "a PATCH
of ground and a home. When he has
that he is not, as rule, either lazy ol
vicious or drunken. There are tens OF
thousands of little farms in Pennsylva.
MIA, Virginia and North Carolina owned
and worked by men and women who
were slaves in 1864. His instinct il
! unlike the Indian) to get a foothold OF
the soil, and then to mingle with tn,
life of the whites as servant or in tn,
lighter trades. We speak, of course, o
the lower, uneducated grades of coloret
people, such as these poor refugees al
belong tO.-N. Y. Tribune.