The Caldwell tribune. [volume] (Caldwell, Idaho Territory [Idaho]) 1883-1928, 1885-01-23
The Great Question for the South.

Inc Uredt question lor Tie oou.h'
We quote the following from the
opening paragraphs of paper, by Mr..
George w. Cable, in the January Cen
hlrV, entitled The Freedman's Case in
Equity" in which the relations of the
races in the Southern States are treated
with much frankness and suggestive
ness:
1.-The late Southern slave has within
two decades risen from slavery to
freedom, from freedom to citizenship,
passed on into political ascendency.
and fallen again from that eminence.
The amended constitution holds HIM
up in his new political rights as we'll
as mere constitution can. On the
other hand, certain enactments of Con-
gress, trying to reach further, have
lately been made void by the highest
court of the nation. And another
thing has happened. The popular
mind in the old free States, weary of
strife at arms length, bewildered by
its complications, vexed by many
blunder, eager to turn to the cure OF
other evils, and even tinctured by that
race feeling whose grosser excuses It
would gladly see suppressed, has re-
treated from its uncomfortable dicta-
tional attitude and thrown the whole
matter over to the States of the South.
Here it rests, no longer main party
issue, but group of questions which
are to be settled by each of these States
separately in the light of simple equity
and morals. and which the genius of
American government does not admit
of being forced upon them from beyond
their borders. Thus the whole ques-
ton, becomes secondary in party con-
test, has yet reached period of
supreme Importance.
Before slavery ever became
grave question in the nations politics,
when it seemed each States private
affair, developing unmolested, = it had
two different fates in two different
parts of the country. In one, treated
as question of public equity, it with
cred away. In the other, overlooked
in that aspect, it petrified and became
the cornerstone of the whole social
structure; and when men sought its
overthrow as q national evil, it first
brought war upon the land, and then
grated into the citizenship of one of
the most intelligent nations in the
world six millions of people from one
of the most debased races on the globe.
"And now this painful and weari-
some question, sown in the African
slave-trade, reaped in our civil war,
and garnered in the national adoption
of millions of an inferior race, is draw
ing near second seed-time. For this is
what the impatient proposal to make
it a dead and buried issue really
means. 1t means to recommit it to
the silence and concealment of the
covered furrow. Beyond that incuba-
tive retirement no suppressed moral
question can be pushed; but all such
questions, ignored in the domain of
private morals, spring up and expand
once more into questions of public
equity; neglected as matters of public
equity, they blossom into questions of
ational interest: and, despised in that
guise, presently yield the red fruits OF
revolution.
"This question must never again
bear that fruit. There must
arise, nav, there has arisen, in the
OOuUn ltStli, IL ueSilc W sec coo.toiiHhNu
the equities of the issue; to make it no
longer a question of endurance be-
tween one group of States and another,
but between the moral debris of an ex-
ploded evil, and the duty, necessity,
and value of planting society firmly
upon universal justice and equity
This, and this only, can give the mat
ter final burial. True, it is still ques-
ton between the States; but only sec
ondarily, as something formerly parti-
cipated in, or as it concerns every
householder to know that what is being
built against his house is built by level
and plummet. 1t is the interest Cf the
Southern States first, and consequently
of the whole land, to discover clearly
these equities and the errors that are
being committed against them