The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1889-09-25
The Curse Of the South and the
Negro.


evolution of Christian civilization
which is simply recorded in the Thir-
teenth Amendment of the Constitu-
ton. But the Fourteenth and Eff
teenth Amendments, in so far as they
have imposed negro suffrage upon the
country, have been, and still are, a
curse to the South for which they were
intended as scourge, and also to the
negro race, which they pretended to
bless.
These amendments originated in a
purpose to humiliate and punish with
a punishment more bitter than death
the people of "the States that had
been rebellion;" what more honest
support they had, was based upon an
utter ignorance of the character of the
negro and his capabilities for moral
and mental development.
Can laws, thus founded in the dark
est ignorance of the social elements
which they are to effect, and in saw
age and inexorable purpose of the con-
dueror to wreak ruin and vengeance
upon his defeated foes, ever prove a
blessing to any country Can snch
laws, in the end, when the passions OF
civil strife have burned to ashes and
c,nders, when civil order has succeed.
ed to revolution and blood, and trade
and industry are struggling in for
ward march, prove other than what we
have denounced them to be, CURSE,
to all concerned-to those who enac.
ted them as we'll as to those they were
invented to scourge9
Enlightened and Christian states.
manship demands that the Fourteenth
and Fifteenth Amendments shall be
abrogated. All that is valuable in
the former and we concede that all
that is in it, other than what bears
Upon suffrage, is just, may be pre-.
served in a new draft of the amend.
ment. The fifteenth is blot upon
the craftsmanship of the North, re.
proach to the magnanimity of the
country, "a living threat to the civil
cation Of the South, and the cause Of
constantly recurring race conflicts, in
which the deluded and ignorant negro
Is, always has been, and always will
be the victim, though always the ag-
gressor; and the best interests of both
races require that it shall be blotted
out of the Constitution.
We do not propose the abrogation
of these two amendments, as has been
charged in some quarters, in the inter-
est of the Democratic party. Simply
as a political organization, with no
higher aims than party success, and
the possession Of the fruits of party
success, the Southern Democratic par
ty at leart, might wisely oppose any
such step; and we really believe that
when the abrogation of these amend
ments, or the more radical proposition
to have the Federal government dis
the negro outright, becomes
an aggressive question, the strongest
opposition to it will come from the
vorkinf and offiee-holding leaders of
he Democratic party in the South.
Beyond all question, their interests
will lie in the defeat of any such mea.
sure, and the maintenance of the negro
n precisely the political position in
which tue Republican party, in the
oily of its wrath and the madness of
is vengeance, has placed him. And
Sor a very simple reason. Those
States in which the negroes are in the
argest majority, are amongst the most
'eliably Democratic in the Union;
md those parishes in Louisiana, and
hose counties in our sister Southern
States, which are the very blackest
'eturn, with few exceptions, the heav-
est Democratic majorities. and lei
mr. Northern Republican friends mark
t, ,ohile the negroes retain the franchise
his aoiN CONTINUE to be Me case.
We have, let us be clearly under
TODD, no fear of "negro supremacy"
n the South. That will never take
'lace in any Of these States until our
'wn oountrymen of the Northern States
ave organized and carried out a war
f determination against the whites Of
louisiana, South tCarolina and their
lister Southern States, and converted
hem, by the power of the bayonet,
nto so manv negro Rennhl;cs Tn