National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1881-04-09

oCdIc cOufenLlOn OF cOlOfeQ meu MAS
worthy of the occasion. He told them
he had paid much attention to affairs
in Virginia, and that he thought it the
duty of the cOlored people to take such
steps and MAKE such alliances as would best
secure them in their rights as citizens" !"
This was what might have been expected
from the great brain and the large nature
of the student of political philosophy
and affairs who uttered It.
For sixteen years the United States has
been vainly endeayoring to make good the
freedom of the blacks, forced upon them
by the Thirteenth Amendment. For
fourteen years the Government has been
applying all available methods to the
maintenance of the civil rights of black
citizens declared by the Fourteenth
Amendment. For twelve years the ma
tional authority has been exerted with
varying degrees of ill-success to the main
tenance of the right of suffrage conferred
upon the blacks by the Fifteenth Amend
ment. Each amendment was adopted in
the manner prescribed in the Con-
stitution-being first proposed to
the States by two-thirds vote
in each branch of Congress, and
then ratified by a majority in each
branch Of three-fourthso of the State Legis-
latures. The Bourbons of the South and
their Northern Democratic serving men
have treated those amendments as politi-
cal resolutions rather than as changes in
the fundamental law of the Republic. A
black mans right to vote is as good as a
white mans. White men have no more
right to interfere with the black mans
rights than black men have to interfere
with the white mans rights.
But as the little Sunday-school child
synlpathized with the poor little lion in
the back part of the den, who seemed
unlikely to get piece of the Prophet
Daniel to eat, so a class of soft, credulous
fools and another class of hard-hearted
mercenaries at the North have been very
much afraid that these amendments were
an inconvenience to the kind-hearted
negro-haters, who were compelled to kill
some of the negroes in order to stop the
race from seriously claiming their rights.
We made the slave hated by making him
free. We made the freedman doubly
hated by making him citizen. We in
tensified the hatred of the black citizen
ten-fold by making him voter.
During Andrew Johnson's four years
the executive power was against the
rights of the negro, whose enemies were
thereby inhamed and encouraged. Cen
eral Grant was not sustained in measures
strong enough to more than increase the
irritation, and finally, under an outcry of
many of the metropolitan newspapers,
and the faint-heartedness and short
sightedness of many Republican leaders,
the negro was wholly abandoned to his
cruel foes The Vicksburg massacre of
1874 was the commencement of the
bloody revolution which later developed
into the Mississippi plan, and. State by
State, the South was solidified. Whether
for good or for i'll, the policy
of external force upon the South
has been ended. The removal of outside
pressure gives play to internal forces.
The whites who were united against the
rule Of the Republican party, officered by
whitesand voted into power by the blacks,
are now divided upon the question of
unobstructed suffrage. Enough white
men of the Democratic faith in Virginia
rebelled against Bourbon defiance of the
Constitution on the suffrage question to
make majority party in 1879 with the
negroes in it. This was on State CUES
ton. The national election divided this
party temporarily, but did not reunite the
white Democracy. Now comes their
Senator, and prefers Republican to
Bourbon association. Then come the
negroes of Virginia into a State con-
yention of over six hundred dele
gates. While he was on the floor of
the Senate defying the narrow and bigoted
Bourbons the 10000 black voters of Vir-
ginia represented in the Petersburg con-
yention were indorsing him and COM
missioning him as their leader, tried and
trusted, in the coming campaign. They
sent committee to him and to the Presi-
dent. Their spokesman, Mr.. Syphax, most
eloquently pleaded with the President
not to be turned over to the protectorate
of influences which, if not sinister, have
been proven insufficient. They made
known their faith in the Readjusters and
their Chief, and to them the President
made the response we have quoted. He
advised them to ally themselves with
the Readjuster interest, without ceasing
to be Republicans. He said this
would not affect them as members of
the National Republican party of 1894
He counseled them in effect not to coun-
tenance separate ticket in the coming
State contest, but to stand with the Read
justers. The ballot being made free and
a fair count insured, every voter can then
use his privilege in ftlrtheranoe of what
ever policy his Judgment approves. The
President has spoken words which will
do more to break the Solid South than
could an army of a quarter of a million
men. The honest suffrage party will carry
Virginia this summer, and 1882 will see
crumhling all along the Southern Bour-
bon line. All hail to the new crusade for
political freedom!
More Than Was Bargained For.
When Democratic Senators attacked
the new Senator from Virginia as re-