The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1879-11-27
Justice to the South.
The American Missionary Associatic

The American Missionary Association
recently held its annual meeting in Chi
cago. The Rev. Mr.. Strictly, a celebra
ted divine of New York, and one of the
founders of the Oberlin College, cores
ponding secretary of the assaciotion, de-
livered himself of very sensible ad
dress on the subject of the Southern ne
gro, in which he took occasion to ad.
minister a very dignified but severe re-
buke to the stalwart abuse of the South.
ern people. The American Missionary
Association makes it a special work to
inquire into the condition of the freed.
men and devise methods for their eleva.
ton to better state of citizenship, and
when one of its members speaks his ut.
terances are probably entitled to more
than ordinary consideration. The Rev.
Mr.. Strieby says:
But show you another picture 1t
carries US back few years. The Legis-
lature of South Carolina is in session. Its
members are mostly black men. They
have generally no property and pay no
taxes, yet they have taxed that impover-
ished State to the verge of destruction,
not for public improvement, but to law
ish it upon themselves in suppers, wines,
personal perquisites, in jobs and in rail-
road chemes. No more scandalous or
reckless plundering of public treasury
has ever been practiced in America, and
that is saying great deal. Why is this
little handful Of mock Legislators allowed
to do this? Why do not the people rush
upon the and hurl them from the places
they dishonor? Why? simply because
there stands as guard file of United
States soldiers-not themselves sufficient
in numbers to be formidable, but repre-
senting the national government and its
authority, and to touch them is to touch
it. The South is indignant, determined,
and do you wonder? The troops are
now gone, the black Legislators dispersed
and white taxpayers are in their places (;
and rising above all other considerations
is the purpose of those taxpayers that at
whatever cost, and by whatever needed
methods, those irresponsible plunderers
shall never come back again into power.
You blame them, but I fear you would
do the same yourselves under like pro-
vocations. If the general government,
by means of a bloody war, should subdue
the Western States, and then enfranchise
in any one State enough Indians to out
vote the whites, and those Indians should
re.enact the plundering of the Columbia
Legislature, how long would the West
bear it? 1 suspect it would not be long
till every Indian would be converted into
good Indian, but it would be in the
Western sense he would be q dead In
dian. Brethren Of the North, make the
case your own. Put yourself in your
Southern brothers place, and judge him
by your own impulses. What, then, is
the true remedy for this great evil? To
answer this we must honestly consider
what the real evil is. These South Car
olina taxpayers don't crush these black
voters because they are black. They
would do the same to the "poor whites"
it they, having the numerical force,
should enact the same wrongs. Nor is
it because they are Republicans. The
trouble, therefore, is not with the mans
color or party, but with the man himself
with his ignorance, his degradation
and his facility in being used as the tool
of designing men.
The remedy, then, is not to change his
color or party, but his character. All
other remedies are delusive; and it
is a national folly and crime to tamper
longer with them. n 1t is o
shame and a grievous wrong to leave
matters as they are. It's wrong to the
blacks to compel them to suffer in the
South or fee to Kansas. 1t is unfair to
the South to put them to the dreadful
alternative Of suffering or doing such
great wrongs. 1t is q shame for an en-
lightened nation to keep itself thus en-
broiled, to the hindrance of its prosperi-
ty and the jeopardy of its peace.