The Rock Island Argus., 1882-01-13
Friday. janusr5 l3, 1882.
MOVEMENT OF SOUTHERN NEGROES.

1
Having patiently borne his wrongs for
ten years, or more, why should the negro
revolt now, and especially when the stall
| wart white Democrats affect to be his best
friends and most considerate neighbors?
When one of them was demonstrated
with and urged to stay it being foolish to
| undertake such a journey without money,
he truly replied that he'd as soon die of the
'whooping cough as the measles If we
stay here he said, 'we's gwine to die, and
we'd just as soon perish by the roadside on
de way to Arkansas as to die in Souf Caro-
lima But it is not the absolutely poor
negroes who have gone. Gen. B. Z.
Nicholson, a large planter, who lost
twenty-five out of thirty hands employed
by him, says: The negroes who have
gone were the rich ones, and those who
are left behind are poor In other words
the more provident and intelligent of the
black people, who by dint of industry and
economy have saved up little, have de-
serted the state and taken that little with
them.
This is loss of laboring force that no
state can afford but it is inevitable where
the political policy of those who control
the state is as proscriptive and illiberal as
that of South Carolina is. Year by year,
however slowly, the negroes of the South
ern states ara becoming more intelligent as
to their rights, and more jealous of them.
They are aware, too, that this is free
country, in which a man, if denied his
rights in one state, can remove to others,
where prescription is not so rigid, and
there is bare chance at least of earning a
livelihood. > Cincinnati Commercial.
In answer to the above the Missouri Re
publican says:
Nothing can occur in the south which
concerns the negro race without areusing
a maudlin discussion of supposed wrongs
put upon the poor blacks by the brutal
whites. When three years ago there was
considerable emigration of negroes from
southern states to Kansas, the motive with
the refugees" was to reach the free soil
and breathe the sir of liberty in an en-
lightened and progressive northern COM
munity. These conditions could not be
found in one of the old slave states. Now,
when the movement is from one southern
state to another from an old and compar-
atively civilized community in the east to
wild and barbarous region in the west,
where the persuasive bowie-knife is the ar
bitrator of all disputes, and negro's blood
is of no more significance than SO much
pokeberry juice. the exodus, " we are as
sured, is equally inspired by yearning for
more freedom. I"
Asininity never reaches its full growth
till it is found in the person of a republi-
can editor when he undertakes fo divine
and trace the motives of southern negro,
of whom he generally knows nothing at
all, and of whose condition and capabili-
ties he has neither the opportunity nor de-
sire to inform himself
Why did not the Commercial put the
touchstone of truth to the subject it dis
cusses? What is the real status and the
true opportunities of the negroes in South
Carolina? In 1880 South Carolina had
population of 995. 900. Its agricultural
products for that year were. cotton, 522,-
54S bales, worth S26, ,000, 900; corn, H. |
500 900 bushels, worth at home $s.00O- |
600; wheat, 900, 900 bushels, worth ST. |
o00, 600; oats, 1,404,000 bushels, worth |
100000; rice, 32.OO0,o0o pounds, worth
81, 500, 600. The aggregate value of these
products was Ss6, 100000, or about $37
per capita. 1t will be perceived these are