The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1879-04-05
THAT NEGRO EXODUS.

! We rclcrrcu DIlcly last Wcch W singular
migration that has set in among the negroes
of Mississippi and Louisiana TO Kansas, and
although it is said in explanation that ticke
AGENTS arc ut the bottom Of it, with lying
stories TO the negroes that on their arrival in
Kansas cach will be presented with 40 acre,
of land and span cf mules, the St Louis
PcDyJlicaJ, sees Il much more rational motive
at the bottom Of it, and in II well considered
article under the head Of THE Question AT
the South, treats the subject as follows:
The curious emigration Of the negroes from
the plantations of Louisiana to Kansas reminds
Us of the unwclcomc and difficult race qucs
ltion that lies behind the phenomenon. some
silly dclusiOn about IA free farm ana mule To
work it and semi paradlsalcal condition III
the bleak and wintry state that Is the objective
point of the migration may have something
to do with it; but it is useless to attempt to
lovcrlooh the more important truth involved.
The colorod race do not migrate from a warm
and sunny habitat to a cold and iuhOspilablc
region when they are even partially content
and it takes less 10 content the negro than any
other race on the earth. They are extremely
adverse to movements of any kind, and 1t
must be something more than mere dcluslon
derived from railroad cirCalarS that has start
ed this exodus The real reason Il that the
two races in Louisiana and other states where
Ithcv are so evenly balanced as To provoke
struggles for supremacy do not live IN peace.
Whether this is because they cannot, we are
not prepared to say, In Louisiana, south
Carolina and Mississippi the cngrosslng ques'
ton for twelve years was whether the whites
should rule the whites. The varying fortunes
of the fierce struggle gave us examples OF
each dominatiOn-and neither was sallsiac-
tory. One rule was riot OF ignorance, ven
aliy and fraud without the sense OF shame
the other was one of intolerant assumption OF
superiorItv together with the eXaction of un-
conditional submission of the weaker race to IA
system of social determinations; and the eS-
pousal OF the cause of the whites and OF the
blacks, respectively, by the democratic and re-
publican parties of the country has invested
the struggle with national interest and diff
Guilty if not with national danger,
While the republicans were IN the ascend
cncy IN the nation, the blacks, with the aid of
the federal power, ruled the whites in Louisi-
ana, MlssisSippl, South Carolina and Alabama :;
but when the republican rule in the nation
was overthrow, the black rule in the South
went with it, The question in the South seems
to be one of unconditional supremacy on one
side and unconditional submission on the 9th
cr-whether the negroes or the whites shall
abandon Louisiana and other warm states, and
seek a new field elsewhere. Under the Grant
administration the whites left by hundreds,
and 1t looked as though thenegrOcs were about
to triumph in the desperate struggle for abso-
Lutte possession. Had the Grant policy been
maintained five years longer, they would have
triumphcd, and the white population would
have moved in bodies to other regions. But
with the departure of Grant from the White
House the whites came into power in Louisi-
ana and South Carolina, and it is now the ne
rroes, instead of the whites, that migrate.
Is peaCcable settlement OF the question
practicablcg Under the conditions it has pre-
sentcd during the last fifteen years it seems to
involve the departure of one race or the other.
They cannot, or at least they do not, live ami.
cably togcthcr-neither under Il republican
policy nor under democratic policy-and it
is Il mistake, perhaps, 10 say it is because the
whites of Louisiana and South Carolina are re
fractory, arrogant and lntolcrant Suppose the
conditions were transferred to the North-to
that group comprising the contiguous states
of Ohio, Indiana Illinois and Michigan sup
pose onc-half or a little more than Onehali,
the population Of these four states were blacks,
would there not be a perpetual strife for supre-
macy, marked by the same, or worse obstinacy,
intolerance and rccklessness than the struggle
presents in the South? Would the whites of
Michigan remain the steadfast republicans
they have been if 100000 Of the $4,000 popu
lation of that state were suddenly replaced by
negroes?