Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1882-01-31
STdTE SOTEREIGNTY.

The Atlanta Constitution considers jeff
Davis talk about the lost cause all bosh,
and that the South, now that the institu-
ton of slavery is out of the way, has no
more interest in the dogma of state
sovereignty than Massachusetts, The
editor of the Constitution considers the
| South freer and more prosperous to-day
than when slavery was a part of her
environment
The GLOBE fully indorses the Co1astStu-
| TONS estimate of Mr.. Davis chronic
grumbling, but the conclusion it has
reached in regard to the interest the
South has in the question of state
sovereignty is rather ambiguous. The
South may have no more interest in that
question than Massachusetts, and yet
have vital interest in dogma as old as
the government itself, and synonym
for local autonomy. The inference to be
| drawn from the Constitutions conclusion
| that Massachusetts has no interest in To-
cal or home government is unnarrauted
| by the facts. That State has on occasions
even in late years re-afirmed her devo-
ton to the doctrine of States rights. 1t
is as essential to the prosperity of State
as the exercise of delegated powers
is to the proper administration of the af-
fairs of the federal government.
The fact to which our Atlanta cotem-
porary bears witness, that the political,
| agricultural, manufacturing and cognate
interests of the South are in a more
prosperous and healthy condition at the
present time than when handicapped
with the peculiar institution that perlshed
IN the civil war, is due to several causes,
chief among these being home-rule and
free labor under home proprietorship.
All other causes combined have not re-
tarded the advancement of the material
and political interests of the South so
much as alien rule made possible in that
section by the anomalous condition in
which it was left by the civil war. The
history of the South under carpet-bag
rule is but recapitulation of that of In
dia and Ireland under England, and Po-
land under the domination of Russia. No
political or economic theory is more fully
sustained by the census of 1880 than the
dogma of states rights. No tentative
form of government ever produced more
| disastrous results than that erected in the
South under the reconstruction acts of
1867. The two states of Georgia and
Louisiana illustrate faithfully the bene-
| fits of home over alien rule. The former
has suffered as little as any Southern
state from carpet bag rule, and the latter
the most, not excepting South Carolina
Georgia, under home government, has
been described by the Republican news
paper press of the country as state in
which protection to life and property
were unknown; while Louisiana, gov
erned, with but one exception, by white
and colored carpet-bag officials, has been
credited with according to all persons
equal protection under the laws of the
state. The movements of the
white and colered populations of these
two states, as shown by the census of 1880
compared with that of 1870, explain
more eloquently than language can tell
the extent to which the exact reverse of
| this is true. The census of 1870 shows
that there was, in the State of Georgia at
that time, LISA, 100 inhabitants, and that
of this number $40, 142 are colored. The
census of 1880 credits the same State with
l,542, $50 inhabitants, of which number
,765 are colored, showing gain of
35S, 071 inhabitants from 1870 to 1880, of
which number 179, 623 are colored. These
statistics show that the colored popula-
ton of Georgia during the decade COW
cred by the census of 1880 increased
about thirty three per cent, while the
ratio of increase for the State during the
same period, was only thirty per cent.
These figures establish the fact, if they
mean anything, that, instead of being
oppressed and driven from Georgia by
Democratic state government, the color
ed population of that State in
creased in ratio exceeding that
of the white population. Compared
with the achievements under home rule
in Georgia, the results of carpet-bag gov
eminent in Louisiana during the same
period are very fiattering to the states
rights theory. According to the census
of 1870 the population of Louisiana was
726, 915, of which number 1854, 210 are col
ored The census of 1880 shows that the
same state had 939, 946, of which number
4s5, 200 are colored-making an increase
in the population of the state from 1870
to 1880 of 3,O31, of which number 121,-
090 are colored, or an increase of thirty |
three per cent. in the colored population |
against an increase of twenty-nine per
cent, in the whole population of the |