The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1880-04-23
WHY HE LEFT.

WHY HE LEFT.
A Louisiana CoIOred Man shows tho
Helplessness of His Race Against
Southern lsuffians.
Washington Letter TO the New York Timesl
The Exodus Committee met this morn
ing, Senator Vance presiding in place Of
Senator Voorhees,, who was i'll and IN
able to be present.
Philip Joseph, light mulatto, appar-
emily an unusually well-educated man,
and editor of the Mobile Gazette, testi-
fed, in response to questions by Senator
Window, that he had lived in Alabama
all his life until the last three years,
which he had spent in Louisiana. The
first concerted movement that he knew
of among the negroes took the shape Of
a convention, held ut Montgomery in
1874, at which committees were appoint
ed to seek favorable spot in the West
to which the negroes might emigrate,
and find happier homes to collect and
diffuse information concerning the con-
ditions of the race, and to prepare an adj
dress of complaint to Congress. The
address,. which was drawn up by Mr..
Joseph and embodied his personal knowl-
edge, set forth that AZ Il race the negroes
had never more than partially enjoyed
their political rights, and cited the facts
supporting this assertion. nl-health
prevented the witness from maintaining
an actual connection with the movement
thus started. He soon after went to
Madison parish, La, and went into
business there. The negroes in
that parish were well treated by
the whites until the November or De-
cember elections in 1879 for State and
local officers. On the Sunday night pre-
ceding election day, armed bands from
other parishes, of whites, raided through
the parish, killing David Armstrong, q
negro, wounding other negroes, and in
timidating the whole colored population,
ticket received about 5000 majority,
though in 1876 the Republican ticket
had 2, 52l votes, against 1872 for the
Democratic ticket, and the witness knew
of hardly dozen Democrats among the
blacks, who outnumber the whites by
four OF five to one. The natural effect,
the witness continued, of this and SIM
liar outrages was to intensity the desire
of the blacks to leave the parish, but
they found it difficult to get away, more
especially on account of the unwilling
ness of steamboat officers to incur the
odium resulting from taking them as
passengers. In Ouachita parish the ne
groes had the same difficulty in getting
away that they had in slave days. If it
became known that they intended to go
to Kansas, they were killed, or, if they
got started, were sometimes tracked
down by bloodhounds.
The witness described the changes, in
furious to his race, made by the new
constitution of Louisiana, prominent
among which were two. 1t prescribed
the precinct at which voter should ap-
pear and cast his vote, thus obiging
negro employee to pass under the eyes of
his employer and expose his ballot,
should the employer choose to be there
and compel it. This was form of in
timidation, since the employee dared not
offend his employer by casting q vote
against the latter's party. Under the
old constitution, a registered voter could
choose his own precinct, and thus evade
his employer. Under the old constitu-
ton voter, on being challenged, could
swear in his vote, and the inspectors
We're obliged to receive it. Under the
new one the challenged voter must find
two men in good standing to identify
him to the inspectors. White men
standing around the poll did not care,
under the circumstances, to acknowl-
edge that they knew him, and the in
spectors did not admit the good stand
ing of colored indorsers. Since the Dem
ocrats obtained control of the State, in
1874, the fund available for education had
beenreduced by $3.50, 900. Coloredschools
We're kept up in the larger cities,
but in the country districts were not
open more than four months in the year
on an average. The witness thought the
emigration movement would spread and
grow unless some change occurred
whereby the laws should be impartially
enforced and the black men given the
rights and immunities of citizenship.
There had not been q colored man on
jury in Mobile since 1874, and not one
negro out of a thousand could get justice
at the hands of exclusively white juries.
Mr.. Vance said that in Madison parish,
according to the witness figures, there
were eight colored men to one white man,
and asked: And yet you think the Gov
eminent ought to interfere by force of
arms and protect eight black men against
one white man?
Witness-I believe the Government
should protect every man, let him be
black or white, in his rig hts. II the
eight in that county should dare to raise
their hands against the one white man
Mr.. Vance-He would swallow them
Immediately?
Witness-No, sir but he has many q
white man back of him in other coun-
ties and Statesmen who are better
prepared than the colored men are to
move around who can travel by rail-
road and steamboat, and in every way.
1t is as much as poor devil Of O colored
man down there can do to earn his meat,
and he has no money to invest in six
teen-shooters, and all the latest improved
arms.
The witness asserted that the negroes
were kept perpetually in debt by the
cheating of merchants. In reply to a
few closing questions by Mr.. Window,
the witness said that if the negroes at
tempted to carry Mr.. Vance's idea of
sef-protection into execution they would
be instantly arrested by the whites;
"and," he continued, eff Mr.. Vance
should go through that country preach
ing that doctrine to the blacks, the
whites would soon ornament Q lamp
post with his head"