Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1882-10-21
The Negroes and Their Political Friends.
81. Louis Republican.

Taking Tennessee as a sample
and it is PROBABLY more than a fair
One-the alleged "friends of the
negroes" have much to answer for.
Conceding that emancipation was
the inevitable result of the war and
leaving enfranchisement to tell its
own story for the wonder and
warning of future ages, surely one
plain duty, supreme and impera-
tive, was pressed upon these
friends by the sudden transfer
nation OF the slave into the Free
man and citizen. They should at
once set sbout fitting him for his
new position, its high duties and
great responsibilities. If, as they
claimed then and claim now,
southern Democrats were his nat
ural and irreconcilabie enemies, so
much the more reason why the
alleged "friendship" of northern
Republicans should show itself in
something beside words. Suppose
Garrison, Phillips, Sumner, Blaine,
Conkling and Garfield-not to men,
ton other prominent "friends"-
had displayed as much energy and
zeal in urging the negro to fit him.
self for the rights and privileges
bestowed upon him as they did in
stirring him up to fresh demands
and making him dissatisfied and
troublesome member of the body
polite, what vast good they might
have accomplished for him and for
the country. Suppose the Repub-
lican party had been even half as
anxious to make the negro a self
supporting and self-respecting man
as it was to secure his vote for the
Republican ticket, how much above
and beyond his present low grade
would he have been to-day. We
do not say that any effort from any
quarter could have brought him up
to the proper standard of manhood
and citizenship, but we do say that
if Republicans = especially those
leaders in whom he had such un-
limited contidence-had personally
and actively interested themselves
in his advancement as man and
citizen, irrespective of his voting
power, he would not be what he is
to-day in Tennessee and elsewhere,
and what he is likely to remain for
many years to come. He has been,
and still is, the victim of criminal
neglect on the part of his alleged
Republican friends" who do not
care how ignorant and degraded he
is so long as he goes with them and
for them at the polls. The deeper
his ignorance and degradation, the
easier to make and keep him tool,
and it is a fact which speaks vol
umes in favor of Democracy and
against Republicanism, that the
progress of the negro,- o,-little as it is,
dates from the overthrow of Repub-
lican and the establishment of
Democratic rule in the south. Five
years ago, Ex-senator Revels, of
Mississippi, declared that his people
in that State had received far more
and other advantages
from Democrats than from RepuD-
cans and what is true in Mississip-
pi is true throughout the southern
States. The negro owes nothing to
the Republican party, except the
bitter and humiliating experience
of fifteen years, which may be prof
liable hereafter, but certainly is not
SO now. The war necessarily in-
sured his freedom, and in any event
must have followed as
soon as he was even partially pre-
pared for it. Bestowed when and
as it was, it has been quite as much
curse as blessing to him and his
thus far, and what it will become
hereafter he alone can decide.