The weekly Floridian. [volume] (Tallahassee, Fla.) 1867-19??, 1880-07-16

18m B00 416UOct4bD ApI O1HDAzs8 800 ~
" issue ana for cultivAting : prejudice
which should die out
In portrait drawn of Bisbee by the
S.sss and Press it is alleged Of him that
81 he never sees the opportune time, nor
I" tho skillful way to say the best thing,
" and 70 do the best act, ~ do some men
with more tact but less ability In hrs
utterauce ON the race issue " this tactiess
leader illustrates the truthfulness Of the
criticism of the San and Press The q is
sue" he appears to deprecate simply
means the antagonism Of color, hence
sometimes called the "color line the
arrayment of race against race, as the
negroes in opposition to the whites. Now
If it can be shown that the Democrats are
responsible for the alleged race antago-
nisms in Florida, then they would be
amenable to the arraignment threatened
but if the responsibility should happen
to lay at the door of the party with which
Mr.. Bisbee consorts, what then?
1t is needless to argue question which
has but one side to it. From the outset,
the white Republican leaders of Florida
as elsewhere in the South have labored to
compact the negroes into solid body.
They did this originally through Union
Leagues and Lincoln Brotherhoods. Those
organizations were political and were de-
signed to bind the negro to the Republi-
can party, and but for the negro there
would have been no Republican party
anywhere in the South, least of all such
conglomeration as now exists. Had the
newly enfranchised race been left free to
choose their own political associates they
might have adopted the advice of Charles
Sumner and divided up" as their incli-
nations prompted. This would have taken
the negro out of politics" but would not
have suited the purposes of the adventu-
rers who focked South as to new and
promising field for plying their vocation.
Hence the negroes were organized into
solid body of voters, bound by oaths to
vote as directed, their passions excited to
animosity against all white men not Re-
publicans and thus became the tools of
INSCRIPTIONS leaders who used them as
instruments for the promotion of their
own ambition and the accomplishment of
the schemes of plumber they inaugurated
whenever and wherever they obtained
foothold. In this way the "color line "
originated for, naturally, the whites,
when they found the blacks arraying
themselves against the best interests of
the State, were forced to act in concert, as
we'll for their own protection and the pro-
lection of their property as for the preserva-
ton of civilization itself.
Thus we see where the responsibility Of
the race issue" rests. 1t was such men
as Bisbee who poisoned the minds of the
negroes and influenced them to draw the
"color line " and who are still trying, by
all the arts of the demagogue, to retain
their " grip" on them. How often has
Bisbee and such as he taught the negro
to look upon the Southern white man as
------J ".-vvv vVuUIvI Vi Lne govern
ment would end in depriving the blacks
of their rights and in the re-establishment
of slavery? In this very speech made at
Jacksonville he is reported as saying,
"When we were struggling with the
"troubles and dangers of reconstruction,
"Hancock surrendered to the enemy. He
" believed when the war ended that the
"South was restored to all her rights, IN
cI,Iding that Of Slavery" What object
could the speaker have had in uttering
this falsehood except to mislead and in
flame his negro hearers? He knew that
his statement was untrue, but they did
not. He knew that the South accepted
the results of the war, including the abo-
lition of slavery, and that at no time,
pending reconstruction or since, had Gen
eral Hancock given countenance, by word
or deed, to the idea that slavery was re-
stored to the South after the war was
over. Bisbee's purpose was obvious, and
if it failed to elicit the usual OATS So" it
was because the colored brethren were
not prepared to swallow too much of one
thing at time. Nothing can be palmer
than that the responsibility for the " race
ISSUE" with all its injuries to the negro,
lays at the door of the Radical Republi
| L. 4 - =
tive of his race in Congress, once said,
"The carpet-bag element of the party was
Eat the foundation Of the troubles in the
"Southern States. He had been led to
"look upon the Republican leaders as the
"true friends of the South, but he would
freely say that in his judgment they were
"hypOcrises." Bruce's colored predecessor
in the Senate (Revells) used this language
in letter to General Grant:
Since reconstruction the masses Of my people
| have been, e. It were, enslaved In mind by I'M
| principled adventures, who, caring nothing Tor
| the country, were willing to stoop to anything,
| no matter how infamous, to secure power to
| themselves and perpetuate II. My people are
naturally Republicans, but as they grow older In
| freedom 90 do they in wisdom. A great portion
| Of them have learned that they were being used
a. mere tools and. as In the late election, not be-
ing able to correct the existing evils among Them