National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1881-04-22
Past and Present.

what miserable shifts are the Southern
leaders driven in the current debate! We
are assured that not a straw has been
placed across any mans path to the bal
lot-box at the South. Negro suffrage Is
not only tolerated, but honestly protected.
The relations of whites and blacks are all
amicable; and yet in the same debate
we are told that intelligence and property
shall rule at the South regardless of ma
jorities. Negro suffrage is treated as
something too revolving to be endured
by the whites. Southern Senators speak
as bitterly of General Malone and his
followers as they ever did Of carpet-bag-
gers, scalawags, and niggers." One SEN
ator alluded to the Malone movement as
an effort to break UP society.
What is the reason Of all this incon-
sistency? Why do Democrats declare
that no people under the sun would en-
dure the rule of negroes, and in the next
breath swear with uplifted hand that
they never interfere to prevent negroes
from voting. In the old slavery times
We were told that the negro could not
learn, and vet laws of great severity were
enacted to punish any who should attempt
the impossibility of teaching him. We
were assured that the negro slave loved
his condition. but blood-hounds were
sometimes used to bring him back while
fleeing from it. The slaves loved their
masters and mistresses land masters and
mistresses there were who were greatly
beloved by servants of the household); ;
yet we were constantly told that insur-
rections were imminent. The slave system
was disease so deadly that the sufferer
was ever endeavoring to deny to himself
its fatal character.
Political history seems just now in
order. Let US rapidly review it. When
Missouri came in as slave State against
Northern protest the South and its North
ern allies sugar-coated the pill with the
compromise for freedom north of the
parallel of $50 30f. When slavery wanted
another State, the South and Northern
friends rubbed out the last pledge, and
provided for a stand-up fight between
Freedom and Slavery in Kansas. John
Brown and David r. Atchison were of
the contending armies in this strife.
Freedom won" But she shall not have
the stake" says the South and some of
its Northern friends. "Fair play!" said
Stephen A. Douglas. "Off with his
head" cried the South and its Northern
servitors. His friends carried the next
National Democratic Convention, and
adopted platform without a split. Then
slave State delegations seeded. The ma
.joIity in a Democratic National Contention
had no rights aeItich the minority aeas in any
manner bound to respect if that majority
differed with the minority on the ex-
tremest demands of slavery. Two Demo-
cratic parties were of course defeated by
one Republican party. This was the
darling scheme of the predecessors of the
obstructionists in the present Senate.
War, destruction, suffering, and defeat
scotched but did not kill the snake, from
the bite Of which no man seems ever to
recover. That snake is the spirit of re-
sistance to authority. It resists all laws
it does not frame. It is unconscious of
its own disdain of the obligations implied
by the social compact. 1t SCOTS at ma
jorities, and yet claims that they vote.
Its will is its law, and for power it aims
to force its way through all obstacles. 1t
pretends to object to negro domination.
We have recalled the fact that it reyolted
against majority rule in the National
Democratic Convention of 1860. There
were no negro delegates in that
convention. No negro in all the
broad land voted for any delegate
to that convention. Stephen A. Douglas
was pro-slavery man and slave-owner;
but because he had simply insisted on
keeping the bargain which the South had
forced upon the North in the Kansas
Nebraska act of 1854 he was treated ex-
actly as Malone is now treated in the
Senate. All who were possessed of the
devil of slavery denounced and fought
him. He could easily have been elected
on the pro-slavery non-interyention plat
form of 1885, but the slavery wolf would
have it that freedoms lamb was muddy
ing the waters in the stream above where
he was drinking.