American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1880-07-03

The majority report of the Senate Sc
lect Committee on the causes of the
Exodus, is document which the stall
wart sneerers at the investigation and
the manufacturers of outrages will find
very difficult to wrestle with. The
conclusion of the Committee that the
exodus is largely due to the stimulat-
ing influence of aid societies in Wash
ington, Topeka and indianapolis, is
comparatively of small Importance; but
the facts detailed to show that emil
grafton was not due to the causes which
the stalwarts have put forward in ex-
PLANTATION of it, are very significant
and convincing. The conclusion of the
Committee that there was no depriva-
ton of political rights or any hardship
in condition to which discomfort could
legitimately be traced, and the facts
upon which that conclusion is based,
are especially significant. On this point
the Committee say, speaking of North
Carolina, the State to which attention
was first directed:
A minute examination into the situation of
the colorci mel shows that the average rate
of wages, according to the age and strength of
per mon; b. including board and house o live
in, and garden and truck patches around the
house, tir wood and r ain other privile yes,
all rent free. Those, aided to the extra labor
wag s, which Iuld be canned by hands dur
ing IN, season of gathering turpentine and
rosin, or of picking c ,tton, m lde the general
ny erage of compensation for labor in that
aVerase ai in any 10 4Sern State to which these
people were gDng, to say nothing of the eli
mate of North Carolina, which was infinitely
upon their political rights in North Carolina
they voted freely; that their votes were count
ed fairly; that no improper influence whatev-
acquiring re estate, aud were enjoying pre-
csely the same privileges for education that
the whites were enjoying.
Concerning the alleged mistreatment
of the colored people in courts of justice
the Committee says:
The Committee have ascertained that in
many of the districts of the South the courts
were under entire Republican control, judges,
enn6cans and tst thew We're ZEE eenera p as
many complaints from districts thus con-
trolled as there were from distric s which were
that the whole of the complaints taken to-
get er might be said to be such as are generally
made by the ignorant, who fail to receive in
courts what they think is Justice. Your Com
mittee found no state or County in the South
colored persons were excluded from iurie;;
either in theory or in practice. They found
no County or District in the South where they
were excluded, either in theory or practice,
from their share in the management of county
ment. On the contrary wherever their votes
were in majority, we found that the offices
we, @ most generally divided among the people
or among white people of their choice.
Frequently We found the schools to be con-
trolled by them, and especially that portion of
the school fund which was allotted to their
race; and the complaints which have been so
often made of excessive punishment of the
whites, upon investigation proved to be either
in fact, or. IL there was an apparent
excess of punishment of n black man, the
cause was ascertaiued to be in the nature of
the crime with which he was charged or in the
attendant circumstances
The Committee found the educational
at the South insufficient,
and far inferior to those at the North
But they found the school privileges,
such as they were, shared equally by
white and black; and they found also
that the school funds were divided
fairly according to numbers. Of the
political outrages the Committee say:
have formed the staple of complaint for
many years against the people of the South,
to report that they found nothing, almost
nothing, new. Many old stories were revived
or dweIt upon by Jealous witnesses, but very
few indeed venturcd to say that any consider
able violence or outrage hal been exhibited
toward the e9lored people q the so9th Within th
who testified on this subject, and who we're
evidently anxious to make the most of 1t,
testified to anything; as within their own
but hearsay, with rare exceptions.
After an examination of the relations
existing between landlord and tenant
at the South, which they find in excep-
tional cases disadvantageous to the lat
ter, the Committee express the opinion
that 1.-the condition of the cOlored peo-
pie of the South is not only as good as
could have been reasonably expected,
but is better than rs if large commune
ties were transferred to colder and
more inhospitablc climate, thrust into
with a different system of
labor, among strangers who are not ac-
customed to them, their habits of
thought and action, their idiosyncrasies |
and their feelings" They add, in con-
GLIDING this branch of the report:
While II gradual migration, such as circum- |
stances dictate among the white races. might |
benefit the individual black man and his fami- |
". MS it does those of the whites. we cannot |
but regard this wholesale attempt to transfer |
a people without means and without lntelli-
gruce from the homes of their nativity in this !
manner as injurious to the people of the South, |
injurious to the people and labor system OF the
state where they go, and more than all nJurl- |
Gus to the last degree to the black people |
themselves. That there is much IN their CON
iition to be deplorcd in the south, no one will |
deny; that that condition is gradually ana |
steadily improving in every respect Is really |
true.
Such 4 report, from such source, |
cannot fail to have n marked effect in |
public opinion respecting the |
true condition of the colored man ut the |
South, whatever effect it may have upon
the "eXodus "-DetrOt Free Press.