The Eaton Democrat. (Eaton, Ohio) 1875-1903, 1882-12-21
The Negro Question.

The negro question played o very in
conspicuous part in the recent Congress
sional elections. This is the more re-
markable when we recall the habit of
the Republican press to make the most
of it in the midst of campaigns three or
four wears ago. No reports. of int;mi-
dation, no tales of fnassacres, nothing
about tissue ballots, no attempt to in
flame the Northern people with pathetic
narratives of how co'ored citizens were
driven from the polls and deferred from
voting by the still disloyal Southern
whites. A faint effort was made in
South Carolina to rouse the langu' d ne
groes into troublesome attitude and
bring them in collision with the whites;
but there were no carpet-baggers to
work the plot and the Northern public
did not take kindly to it. and the re-.
sI'.t svss q 5ai blTess The ,elecS Siou in. the
full, the Republicans made. hut a feeble
show of strength. and tho States were
carr. ed by the Democrats with the ac-
customed majorities. ete
I 1t may be that the quiet that marked
the elections in the South was the quiet
of negro submission and apathy, that
the blacks allowed the whites to have
their own way out of sheer inability to
prevent it, The negro is passive ami
NAL, lethargic, heavy, impecvious to
the motives that bring white men to-
gether in coherent action and utterly
averse to protracted, organized effort.
and it may be that, after VIOLENT and
! exhaustive attempts to rule in certain
States through the mere force of num-
bers, the colored race have abandoned
the struggle and sunk into unresisting
submission to the rule of the whites.
Still the fact is interesting. The North
ern people are tired of the negro ques-
ton in the South. They have given
5000, 600 blacks the right to vote and
they have come to the conc usion after
many foolish experiments in the shape
of Congressional Election laws that if
the negroes do not exercise the right at
all proper times in their own way, it is
their own fault Northern people have
their hands full with their own affairs
and it is too much to .pect of them,
as the Republican party has expected
OF them, that they shall neglect their
own local business to assist the blacks
in Louisiana and South Carolina in per-
forming theirs. A race 100000
strong ought to be able to vote without
OUTSIDE nelp; II IL cannon, there Is
no remedy for it. If this race must
sink into meek submission unless per-
petually held up, then it will have to
sink, for Northern people cannot per-
petually hold it up. -.
What is to be the political and social
future of the negro is not as clear as
could be wished; but it may be taken
for granted that the negro question is
taken out of National politics for the
present The negro must paddle his
own canoe the best he can. The North
ern people are tired of performing that
homely an A simple task for him, and in
the Democratic era that seems to have
set in, it is pretty certain that the Fed
eral Government will be restricted to
Federal duties and general legislation
and restrained from passing special
laws for the benefit of the negro and
tsending an invading force of Deputy
Marshals and Supervisors into the
States to enforce them. How the col.
ored race will get along when left en-
tirely to their own unassisted efforts can
only be conjectured. 1t is to be hoped
both for their sake and that of the coun,
try they will prove equal to the duty Of
becoming intelligent. patriotic and use.
full American citizens. st Louis Reps1b.