Watertown republican. [volume] (Watertown, Wis.) 1860-1906, 1880-04-07
THE SOUTHERN EXODUS.

or party, and hence the significance of
the following from that paper concerning
the negro exodus from the south: "Sena-
tor Vance, of North Carolina, who, in
the absence of Senator Voorhees,, has
been engineering the exodus inquiry, has
been constrained to cucumber the record
with some testimony which the solid-south
party would prefer to suppress if they
could. Among the witnesses examined by
him was one Philip Joseph, "a oolored man
who is now editing newspaper in Ala
bama. and who is evidently person of
fair intelligence Mr. Joseph told what
he observed in Madison parish, Louisiana,
during the political contest oflast year.
He told some interesting things about the
mode of conducting the contest, and
added that ''the democratic ticket received
5000 majority, though in 1876 the repub-
icans cast 2,521 votes, and the democrats
only 332." AS the official returns are
easily obtained, Mr.. Vance might have
disproved this statement, had it not been
true He did nothing of the kind. On
the contrary, he tacitly admitted the fact
and assumed that there was nothing in it
to show that anybody had any cause of
complaint. He assumed that such a re-
markable change in election results might
have been brought about by democratic
argument and eloquence, and that if more
energetic means were employed, those who
used them were rather to be commended
than censured.
Mr. Joseph told what means ofpersua-
sion were employed. He said: "On the
Sunday night preceding election day
armed bands of whites from other parishes
raided through the parish, killed David
Armstrong, negro, wounding other ne
groes, and intimidating the whole colored
population" Mr.. Vance did not express
any doubt about the truth of this state
ment. He did not intimate that the wit
nesses stated an untruth when he said
that the whites illustrated the great prin-
ciple of "home rule" by leaving other
parishes and invading Madison parish in
armed bands, and carried the election by
intimidation, violence and actual murder.
Instead of that, he remarked that, accord
ing to the figures given by the witness,
the blacks outnumbered the whites eight
to one in Madison parish, and added:
"And yet you think the government
ought to interfere by force of arms and
protect eight black men against one white
man." The witness expressed belief
that the government ought to protect
every man, regardless of his color, in the
exercise of his rights. off, said Joseph,
'the eight in that county should dare to
raise their hands against the one white
mani" "He would swallow them inn
mediately'' sneered Vance. "Nm sir, .
continued Joseph: "but he has many
white man back of him in other counties
and statesmen who are better prepared
than the colored men are to move around
who can travel by railroad and steamboat
and in every way. 1t is as much as a
poor devil of a colored man down there
to earn his meat, and he has no money to
invest in sixteen-shooters and all the
latest improved arms" He further ex-
pressed the opinion that if Mr. Vance
should go through that country, advising
the blacks to assert their rights by force,
"the whites would soon ornament a lamp
post with his head.''
All the rest of the witnesses who are in
a position to know the facts, as well as
hundreds who have fed from southern
persecution, tell substantially the same
story that Joseph does. 1t is an unbrok-
en- story of violence, oppression, robbery,
and unjust discrimination in the execu-
ton of the laws. And yet Mr.. voorhees,,
Mr.. Vance, and their political brethren
generally, either pretend not to know the
cause of the exodus, or attribute it to false
representations made by land agents, or
to the acts of their political opponents
who care more for votes than the we'll
being of the negro. The simple truth is
that the blacks are leaving the southern
states as fast as they can get away be-
cause life for them is weil-nigh unendur-
able there, and no change can be for the
worse. The southern representatives in
congress know this, and if their advice
had been taken, the voorhees, investiga-