Fayette County herald. [volume] (Washington [Washington Court House], Fayette County, O. [Ohio]) 1860-1???, 1879-05-08
ignedl RUTHERFORD B. HAYES.
Negro EmigratIOn-RestOr of
Slavery

Inc JdCkSOI MISS CGU7lO2I asserts
the negro emigration from Mississippi and
other Southern States was inaugurated,
and is now encouraged and facilitated, by
Northern men; but fails to point out a
single instance in which Northern men
have interfered in the matter. The CLdT-
ion need not look so far north as Boston
for the causes which lie at the bottom of
the negro exodus. That paper is. as a
rule, moderate and conservative in its
tone; but the colored man who can read,
and who has read that paper continuous
ly for a year past, will find abundant
cause for alarm. The vestiges of slavery
are apparent everywhere in the South,
and the trouble with nine-tenths of the
native born Southern whites is that they
assume that the colOred man has neither
the capacity nor the right to think. Yet
in spite of this prevalent opinion, in spite
of the patriarchal advice of the old
masters, in spite of rifle clubs and bull
dozers, the odd niggers'' will, and do
think, and think to some purpose, too.
That they have been forcibly and fraud
ulently deprived of their civil and polit-
ical rights, and Systematically defrauded
and plundered of their earnings, the col
ored men know by personal experience.
They need no Northern emissary to teach
them that such is the fact. When they
read in the Southern newspapers-for in
the midst of poverty, persecution and
suffering, thousands of black men have
learned to read as well as their white
neighbOrs Shave they not occasion foF Sc
rious apprehension; occasion 10 fear that
they will lose even the nGninal freedom
which they now enjoy? Whenthese men
read in the Southern newspapers that the
ConfPtlerateS have captured the Capitol;
that the last vPs.ire of Republican lccis-
| lati0n is to be wiped oitt; that the Thir-
! teenth. Fourteenth and Fifteenth amend
ments are to he torn from the COHstitu-
I nufl tg-lu MED i flp What
! they TO think? To they mt know that
| their personal liberty and all of the civil
| and DoIitical rights of their race depend
upon the validity and perpetuity of these
amendments? Do they not find in the
| Southern newspapers every week, and
every day in the week, declarations to the
effect that this is white mans govern
ment; that the negroes are wholly unfit
ted for citizenship and self-government;
that the clauses in the Constitutions of
the Southern States which lin words)
guarantee personal freedom to all persons
without regard to race, color or previous
condition were inserted in these COnsti-
tutions while the States were under du-
ress, and therefore have neither legal
force nor validity; that none of the lead
ing candidates for President Thurman,
Tilden, Hendricks and others) have ever
by word OF act recognized the validity of
the amendments or of the statutes passed
BY Congress to enforce them2 And IS it
not a fact that none of these men have
ever recognized these amendments and
statutes as legal and valid :?
The denial of civil and political rights,
bad usage and terrorism no doubt have
much to do with the almost universal em-
igration spirit among the blacks in the
old slave States; but underlying this
there is an all perYading apprehension in
the minds of colored men-even among
the most Intelligent of them-that in the
event of Democratic success in 1850 an ef-
fort will be made to Ie-establish personal
, slavery wherever it existed before the
war. It is bootless to inquire whether OF
not that apprehension is well founded
it is sufficient to know that it exists, and
, that it is intensified by the measures
adopted by. the whites to prevent the
flight of the colored people. The armed
, patrols placed along the rivers and roads
) the warnings received by their clergy
, and leading men, and the threats and vi
: olence daily and nightly made and prac'
tieed against and upon them, most viy
c | idly remind them of their days of bond
: age, and admonish them that even nov
i they are deprived of one of the mobiles
: attributes of freemen-the right TO g
and come at pleasure.-O. S. journal.