Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-12-01
THE PRIDE OF RACE
Is the Only Remaining Feature Of
the Southern Question.
NO SECTIONALISM IN THE MATTER
Even Republicans Will Not Vote for :
COlOred Candidate.
THE VIEWS OF 4 PROMINENT CITIZEN

CHATTANOOGA, November 29.-An in
teresting letter upon the Southern question
has been written by Hon. d. M. Key, the
Southern member in President Hayes
Cabinet, holding the chair of Postmaster
General. He is now District Judge IN
the United States Court Colonel Key is
representative Southerner, and his utter
ances, written as they are in perfectly
frank and candid manner, are of interest
below and above the Ohio river.
I am asked to give my views of sectionalism
in the South as it now exists, If 1t has An exist
ence. This is more difficult matter to reduce
to the general understanding than is likely to
be apprehended at first blush. Sectionalism
in this country, in its hercest and most intol-
Grant aspect, grew out of and thr1ved upon the
has produced wonderful revolution in this
respect The year 1850 found the Southern
States a unit in favor of the institution OF
slavery. Their population believed in the
morality, Christianity = right OF African
servitude. The doctrine had been taught the
people without contradiction or dissent from
the pulpit, the stump, the platform and the
school, The war was the elimination OF the
ideas so taught; the ultimate and supreme
effort of an honest, earnest people to maintain
the right as they saw and felt it; 1890 will find
this people entertaining most remarkable
change of opinion upon this subject; change
that is general, if not universal They believe,
and do not hesitate to express the belief, that
SLAVERY WAS WRONG,
and emancipation was and it continues to be,
blessing to the white race; that the triumph
of the Union cause was the best thing that
could have resulted to the slave States. There
has never occurred in the history of the world
SO complete a revolution in the minds and
opinions of the defeated party in great civil
war, or in any other war, in regard to the fund
amental grounds of the controversy between
the belligerents-
There is no doubt but that if the question of
the re-establlshment of slavery were to be sub
mitted to the vote of the white people of the
South the voice of an overwhelming majority
would be opposed to the proposition. There
would be probably here and there one
standing out as a landmark of the past
who would cast a different vote. The
cause of sectional irritation having been re-
moved and the local opinion in respect to
it having been SO completely revolutiOniZed,
there remains little of the old sectionalism
which grew out OF the long controversy in re-
gard to slavery. In country so large as ours
and with such diversity of climatic influences
and conditions, of interests, production and
habitudeS, there always have been, and Of
necessity, always will be something everywhere
of local pride, local ambition and local preju-
dice which will tend to induce each section,
whether it be East West, North or South to
assert its superiority over the others and to un-
derestlmate the value and quality of the con-
stituent elements which embOdy the greatness
and glory of those others. Each section has, in
its judgment, the best section, the proudest
heritage The South should be allowed to in
dulge its share of boast as to these.
THE APPARENT sECTIoNALISM
between the North and the South is, in no
sense, sectional difference, when rightly un-
derstood. 1t spring from the exigencles of the
peculiar situation of the sections. The habitat
of the negro is in the South. Almost every.
where in it he is potent factor Of our popula-
tioa. In some States and in many sections of
several States, he is In q majority. Race par
tiallties and prejudices always have existed,
and they will exist until the millennium. They
are inborn-a strong. positive, natural inherit
ance, as powerful and decided in the Northern
mind and heart as in the Southern. The negro
constitutes no large or important element of
Northern society or politics Were the Atri-
can race sent to any Northern State in such
numbers as to threaten to overturn the control
of the white people of the affairs OF such State,
there is no doubt but that the white race would
struggle hard to maintain their ascendancy, as
the Pacific States have done to stay the crowd
ing OF the Chinese upon their shores.
An absence of the exciting cause prevents
the friction inevitably springing from equally
divided citizenship and neighborship. If a
Southern white man or white woman places
himself or herself on terms of social equality
with the colored people, visits them upon equal
terms, dimes with them at their own homes or
at the tables of the white person, the white
man or woman so doing falls out of the South
ern social world. If one from the North comes
here and places himself upon terms of equality
with the colored race, he too finds the door of
Southern society shut against MIN; but his fall
is in nowise different in form or consequences
from that of the Southern man who demeans
himself similarly. This is the rock upon which
many excellent men and women from the
North have foundered. They come believing
that the colored man has been wronged by his
white neighbors. He enters the arena as the
champion of the colored man; criticIses and
assails the opinions, conduct and education of
the white man, and soon places himself in an
tagonism to the whites. In such contest it is
easy to see that the champion of the colored
race soon has no social relations with his white
neighbors. and he is not happy or satisfied in
associations which are confined to the colored
race. l am not asserting that this condition of
affairs is right or wrong. simply state the
facts.
HISTORICAL FACT.
Our city is situated in what is called Fast
Tennessee, that part of the State east of the
Cumberland Mountains, and this section of the
State illustrates the truth Of my position,
There were never many slaves in East Ten
nessee. The sentiment of its inhabitants was
overwhelmingly in favor of the Union. Its
men, in very large numbers, fought in the Fed
eral armies. In the last election for President
the Republican majority in East Tennessee
was nearly 1000 There are but two or three
counties in East Tennessee which give Demo.
cratic majorites. If appeal be made, however
to the rural Republicans to support the colored
nominee of their party, they refuse, and will
vote for Confederate instead, when they have
no other choice.
have a summer place on Walden's Ridge, in
q civil district which can cast about rs votes A
majority of these voters are Republicans and
several of them were soldiers in the Union
armies, and yet in no election in which acolored
man has been the nominee of the Republican
party, and there have been several such NOM
nations, he has been able to oFtain more than
five or six votes, and this is fail sample of the
conduct of the rural civil districts. Sectional
ism has nothing 10 do with it. 1t is the pride
and prejudice OF race. If ones affections and
sympathies are such that he takes sides with
the colored race and against his own, he be-
to the companionship of the other
If he be impartial he is not SO treated A man
may uphold the
EQUAL RIGHTS BEFORE THE LAW
of the colored race without mourning con-
tumely, reproach or adverse criticism, or losing.
in any respect, his social standing or influence.
but whenever he admits the equality of the
races in natural position and endowment or in
affairs purely social he becomes separated
from his neighbors whether he be from the
North or the South, native or foreigner
Whether this be diseased state of the public
mind; and. if it be- whether there be remedy
and what it is, do not propose to discuss Ali
I mean to say is that sectionalism has little OF
nothing to do with it. There may be some re-
gions of the South differently situated, but they
do not fall within the compass OF my observa-
tion. ID. ID. KEY.