Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1884-12-27

colored man, raised among and known to
| the people, could not bear witness against
| that of the white man-the negro was !" a
preiudged culprit." Caste built up the
idea that by birth and race every one of
us had certain broad police powers over
every person Of color"
The tempest of war severed al these
! arbitrary relations, but left every one of
the sentiments on which they were rooted.
| The law gave the freeman the ballot. This
would have crushed the alienism, but for
| the fact that the old ideas were all bound
together that they were held to be the
essentials of self-respect How, then,
could we meet the freeman on equal terms
in the political tield?" asks Mr.. Cable
bribery on one side, and whipping and
killing on the other, in the reconstruction
| period.
The struggle was thus on one side how
to establish Republican State Governments
according the blacks the rights con-
coded by the rest of Christendom; and
how to get back the semblance of republi-
can government, and yet retain an arbi-
trary superiority Of white over black as an
alien mental and dangerous class, on the
other side
Under an experimentative truth these
issues of the dreadful episode of reconstruc-
ton rest to-day upon the pledge of the
wiser leaders OF the master class :" remove
the hireIing demagogue and we will see to
it that the freedman is accorded a prac-
teal, complete and cordial recognition OF
his equality with the white man before
the law"
Mr. Cable pities the veal, plea OF those
who desire to wait until I" the feelings en-
gendered by the war pass away The
sentiments he analyses are not feelings
engendered by the war = but for these sen
timents slavery would have persisted Of
itself. To the ex-slave, with the patriarchal
| tie broken by the war, there was broken
also the often tenderer tie Of dependence
and protection. Before the master the slave
renounced it ever since the former has
tried to play on the old sentiment, but it
is harp without strings The old master
repulsed, turned away estranged, and JUS
titled himself in withholding the simpler
! protection without patronage which one
American citizen owes to another, how
ever humble
To be a perfectly free man is still the
goal of the negro Of the South. He is free,
! but the old master retains the exclusive
right to define the bounds of his freedom
Many, says Mr.. Cable, suppose this is the
| end actually sought and desired in recon-
struction, but it is folly to charge such alb
surdity to the best American intelligence
"The belief is all too common that the
nation, having aimed at a wrong result
and missed, has left us Of the Southern
States to get now such other result as we
| think best And herein Mr.. Cable has
penetrated the very heart of the meat of
| the nut. He adds q sentence that suggests
the whole remedy, and which the whole
country prays and trusts may be given to
the care of the sentiment and courage of
the new South"
There IS grouiag number uio see hot
the one thing ue cannot afford to tolerate at
large Is a class Of people less than citizens end
that epery interest IN The land demands that the
freeman be free to become in al things, as jar
as his oao personal gifts rN Ijs and sustain
him, the same sort Of american citizen h.
uouid be i, Nth the sans intellectual and
moral col;ber, he 1rerc udae"
Thus Mr.. Cable reaches the ultimate
! question of fact il; Are the freedman's lib
critics suffering any real abridg.nent?" He
replies in the affirmative, AMI that while
the letter of the law recognizes him as en-
titled to every right of an American citi-
zen, "there is scarcely one public relation
of life in the South where he is not arhi-
trarily and unlawfaIly compelled to hold
toward the white man the attitude of an
alien, mental, and a probable reprobate,
by reason of his race and color"
from this point he proceeds to marshal
his proofs, citing the infamous csnyict
contract system; the marvellous dispropor-
ton of blacks sent to penal servitude; the
exclusion from public conveyances by brute
force Of orderly ooiored people moving on
their own account, but their welcome toll
erance when serving in the capacity of
menials; the narrowing of privileges in
| Courts the tranpling OF the negro's lam
gushing self-respect; the spurning of
MS ambition; the refusal to let
him buy with money, or to earn
by excellence of life momentary immunity
from these public indignities even for his
wife and daughters, and so on to the end
Of a chapter of wrongs. These are the
facts, exclaims this ex-Confederate officer,
this fair-mindcd Southerner, this literary
celebrity, this acknowledged keen observ-
er. this lecturer among his own on many
Southern Up. They are simply the
present afo,rsd ard defended state Of affairs
peeled of its e1terjors." Mr. Cable adds
fearlessly:
Nothing but the habit, generations old. of en-
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