Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1883-10-03

sible, the Republican party, born OF tree
dom and the anti.slavery sentiment of the
country, declared that the black man
should of right be free. After his
liberation was accomplished, through
means Of which the Republican party
availed itself, the masked bands of the
Democracy pursued him by night through
swamp and thicket, and the efforts of Re-
publicans to protect him brought upon
them the vengeance and anathemas of as
sassin organizations. These bands and or
CARNATIONS assuredly were not Republi-
can. The nation did, however, make
great mistake-it freed the slave and
left him to the tender mercies of the
South, instead of treating him as an infant
to whom the fostering care of guardian
was necessity 1t did not protect him, as
it might have done, from the political dom
nation Of Southern Democrats. 1t did not
do as it might have done, and should have
done, shield him from the cruel and en-
shaving legislation of the Southern States,
by which he was practically deprived, in a
great measure, of political rights intrusted
to him by the nation with over confdence
in his ability to hold fast to them. 1t for
got, as it now too well knows it did, that
the boon of freedom was too precious gift
to be intrusted wholly to the care of those
whose unaccustomed hands could not
guard it from the attacks of the old slave.
masters. 1t forgot, or overlooked the fact,
that the servility of centuries born into the
race and enforced by long servitude could
not be at once replaced by free and in
dependent spirit that would assert its
right andmai1tainitin the face of thepower
that once ruled absolutely over the destinies
of race too suddenly enfranchised. 1t
realizes that to-day, after twenty years
of lawful freedom from involuntary servi-
tude, the status of the negro in many parts
of the South is very little better than in
the days of slavery. In nearly all the cot
ton States the condition of the negro is
now very much like what it was in the
anti-bellum days. 1t realizes the fact that
there is discomfort among the negroes at
the South where the Democratic party is
the ruling power that the colored people
of the South are forming "separatist -
organizations because they cannot find that
peace and safety they had reason to expect
{ L
know that the negro in the South is not
prosperous, that his condition is in many
respects pitiful one, that the policy of
the South prevents him from enjoying that
independence which is possible for him at
the North. They know that at the South
he has very little, if any, voice in the
selection of local officers. They know that
in many cases he is not yet fitted, even
after twenty years of freedom, to act with
telligent voter, and that his degradation
and ignorance have given him over in many
cases to vices which are a shame to his
race, and give some color of excuse to the
Southern policy of suppression, and of ex
clusion from local affairs. Now, for all |
these things the Republican party is asked |
to charge ITSELF And why not? 1t
is, of course, to blame Has it
not been the dominant party in |
the South? Has not the South been |
solidly Republican -? Is it not true that
it is to day all one way, and that way the
Republican :? Is it not true that the Re-
publican party has been the author of all
the Southern legislation that keeps the
iron heel upon the negro's neck In short,
has not its local administration of affairs |
in the South been such as to leave the
negro but one right-the right to lie down |
and die, as the South Carolina Democratic |
statesman SO vigorously puts it Why
should not the negro, therefore, form a
separate organization to punish it's chief
oppressor, the Republican party, and show
it's gratitude to that magnanimous De-
mocracy which now weeps SO bitterly |
over the political and social wrongs of its
dear brethren of ebony hue? Verify, the |
angels shed a briny food from celestial
eyes at the sight of such sincere love of
men for their fellows. No wonder that |
our Sonoma contemporary is moved to
prophesy, such is the discomfort of the
negro with tie Republican party, that
'he will almost in body support Hoadly |
for Governor of Ohio this fall"