National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1884-07-19

An exceedingly able and thoughtful
article appears in the Charleston Ne,Cs
and Courier of Wednesday upon the
duty Of the white people of the south to
do what they can toward lifting the
negro population to higher plane Of
intelligence, which was evidently written
by q man Of assured position and liberal
with SO delicate q question with such
perfect candor and plainness. The adj
missions which he incidentally makes in
the course of his argument more than
confirms everything that has been
charged by republicans in regard to tho
methods by which the vote of the colored
people of South Carolina is suppressed.
The proposition which this learned and
conscientious writer presents to his white
fellow-citizens Is that unless the negro is
made more Intelligent and more vir-
tuous citizen the superior race will lose
its high ideals and drop toward the same
level. The burden of illiteracy will press
SO heavily upon the whole body of the
people that the highest as we'll as the
lowest will be involved in q common
ruin. Thirty-flve per cent. Of the popula-
ton Of South Carolina cannot expect to
maintain high civilization while the
remaining 65 per cent. is unable to read
and write.
What Is most striking, however, in this
article is the courage with which the
writer tolls the young scions of the old
South Carolina chivalry that the very
means which they use to save society, as
they imagine, from tho baleful conse-
quences of ignorant suffrage will in the
end degrade and destroy society, if not
supplanted by educational and NOR q
and Christian agencies. at is time for
vigorous action, not with the spear, but
with the pruning hook; not by the
enactment Of circumventive laws whose
purpose is to deprive the ignorant of
their legal rights, which will return some
day to curse their inventors, but by the
primer and the decalogue."
There is a great deal moro of this, but
the passage which we have quoted is sufi-
cient to show the drift of the argument.
We shall give another extract in which
the writer describes the active young
democrats of South Carolina, who think
that they are doing their state service
by depriving the negro of his vote, some-
times by intimidation and violence,
sometimes by fraud, and sometimes by
the enforcement Of vexatious and unjust
laws:
With those who treat this question in a
pharisaical and indifferent spirit we have lit
tie patience.
As sensible men they should know that they
are playing with fire (; and If they "trust in
Providence" to rid us of the negro we suggest
to them the wisdom of excepting their powder
dry" for any unlocked for emergency.
We can respect the honest II misled, class
who openly avow and declare their hostility to
the negro.
1t Is this class which originates the ingenious
circumventive laws which deprive the ignorant
negro of his franchise.
1t is this class that builds upon the sand Of
expediency.
| 1t is this class whose method of culture is the
heroic one Of digging up the roots.
1t is this class which Is continually raising
Tho dovil of hatefnl ignorance, forgetting the
common experience of mankind and the
philosophio declaration or doethe 1T Is easier
to raise the devil than to lay him."