Richland beacon. [volume] (Rayville, La.) 1869-1890, 1889-09-21
THE CURSE OF THE SOCTH md OF
TIRE NEGRO
New Orleans States

NcW OUieihs C''ics
Mankind to-dav and The genera
tons that are to follow ours will ac-
cept the abolition of slavery as
legitimate evolution Of a Christian
civilization which is simply recorded
in the Thirteenth Amendment of the
Federal Constitution. But the Four
teenth and Fifteenth 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
q punishment more bitter than death,
the people of 1.-THE States that had
been in 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 affect, and in
savage and memorable purpose Of the
conqueror to wreak ruin and ven
geance upon his defeated foes, ever
prove blessing to any country? Can
such laws, in tie end, when the pas
sion Of civil strife have burned to
ashes and cinders, when civil order
has succeeded to revolution and blood,
and trade and industry are strug-
Cling in forward march, prove other
than what We have denounced them
to be, curse, to all concerned-to
those who enacted them as well as to
those they were invented to scourge?
Enlightened and Christian states
manship demands that the Fourteenth
and Fifteenth Amendments shall be
abrogvted. 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 a blot upon
the craftsmanship Of the North, a re-
proach to the magnanimity of the
country, living threat to the civil
cation of the South, and the cause o!
constantly recurring race conflicts, in
which the deluded and ignorant negro
is, always has been, and always will
be the victim, though always the
aggressor; 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 in
terest of the Democratic party. Simp-
ly as political organization, with nc
higher aims than party success, and
the possession of the fruits Of party
success, the Southern Democratic
party at least, might wisely oppose
any such step; and We really believe
that, when the abrogation of these
amendments. or the more radical pro
position to have the Federal govern
ment disfranchse the negro outright
becomes an aggressive question, The
strongest opposition to it will come
from the working and of1ice-holdins
leaders of the Democratic party il
the South.
Beyond all question, their interest
will lie in the defeat of any sucl
measure, and the maintenance of til,
negro in precisely the political posi-
ton in which the Republican party
r in the folly of its wrath and the mad
, ness Of its vengeance, has placed him
And for a very simple reason. Thos
States, in which the negroes are il
the largest majority, are amongst tn
, most reliably Democratic in the Union
= and those parishes in Louisiana, AM
those counties in our sister Southern
States, which are the very blacklist
/, return, with few exceptions, the heav
lest Democratic majorities. And, L
: our Northern Republican friends mar
IL, while the negroes retain The fran
chise this uiN continue TO be he case
, We have, let us be clearly under
e stood, no fear Of negro supremacy
anywhere in the South. That wi
n never take place in any ofthese State
"a until our own cOnntrymen of tn
!. Northern States have organized an
. carried out a war Of exterminatio
b against the whites of Louisiana, Nil
sissippi, South Carolina and the
/. sister Southern States, and converte
them by the mower of the baYone