The Columbian. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1910, 1885-10-09
The Blacks in the South.
AN oLD-TINIE ABOLITIONIST REBUKEs THE
IGNORANT ZEAL OF RECENT
CONVERTS.
W. H,gclnson in the Boston Advertiser.

w. Higglnson In the Boston Advertiser.
Surprise is sometimes expressed that
old abolitionists like James Freeman
Clark and Francis w. Bird and my
self should now be lukewarm or in
credulous about the alledged "suppres-
sion of votes at the South when the
cause of the suffering negro is being
hotly argued by many who were not
quite so sensitive to it III the days
when it cost something to take that
side: :, The explanation seems to me
very simple. The very fact that we
are old abolitionists has led us-at
least this is true in my own case--to
study the Southern question apart
from the bias of politics and to get our
knowledge from the very best sources
our former clients themselves.
l happened to command, during the
civil war, large regiment of men who
had been slaves in South Carolina,
Georgia and Florida. Ever since the
war l have kept up a continuous though
struggling and irregular correspond
ence with the sc men, mostly in regard
to claims of pension. l have seen
some of them at the North since the
war, and have seen others in their own
homes and places of business at the
South, those whom have thus met be-
ing usually the more capable and the
more prominent. The information re.
ceived from all these men goes to the
same point-namely, to show that al
though force and fraud have undoubted-
ly been brought IN, and sometimes out
rageously in the past, to intimidate the
negro vote in certain benighted locali-
ties-this kind of interference is now
altogether subordinate factor in the
question the real causes which impair
the Southern Republican vote lie in
wholly other influences, most of which
would have much the same result in
any other locality.
These more direct causes are (D
The ignorance and poverty of the
blacks, which has made 1t impossible
that they should organize and bring
out their vote as against the better
educated and wealther whites: (2)
their disputes and subdivisions among
them selves tendency which is illus,
trated by half the so-called "African
churches" at the North and largely
the result of the same ignorance (3)
their dependence through poverty,
upon white employers, generally Demo
Gratis and having n tendency to dis
charge those who have voted against
them "A tendency also not confined
to the South, as many n orthern "mug-
wumps" have found to their, cost (4)
their disgust at the memory of the carpet
bag governments, under which, as they
found too late, they themselves were
only singed in the fire, while their
Northern leapers got the chestnuts (5)
the absence Of all visible attempt by
Republicans to hold meetings or fur
nish political guidance to their South
ern allies (6) the failure of the Repub
lcan party, when in power, to fulfil its
promises ~ the death OF Lincoln and
now of Grant, the only Northern pub
lie men whose names were really
known in the Southern cabins.
All these points OF explanation have
come to ne, not from my own specula-
tions, but from the very men concern
cd. Compared with these influences,
so far as can form an opinion, vio-
lence and tissue ballots and complicat-
ed ballot boxes are wholly secondary.
These causes have had the effect not
80 much TO transfer the negro vote to
the Democratic side as 10 impair and
diminish it all together All politicians
admit that it is hard to bring out the
votes of the very poor and Ignorant
unless they have direct money inter
est in voting. Now, the bulk of the
negro vote at the South is still and
long will be of just this class. All
politicians know how hard it is to bring
out large vote in an off year. TO the
mass of these sluggish voters among
the Southern voters it is always an off
year. l must say that all the accu
mulated speeches and resolutions of
my Republican friends do not seem to
me to manifest so much common
sense as the brief remark of Sergeant
Harry Williams in my own parlor
"We have made up our minds to quit
politics until we have education and
property then, perhaps, we will try
politics again, or the still pithier say
ing of the old colored man in Atlanta
to Edward Atkinson "You cant
put ignorance on top of knowledge
aud make il stay there