, 1890-03-14
THE NEGRO QUESTION
Discussed Yesterday in the
United States Senate.
Eustis Compels HOar to Re-
tract Certain Statements.
Butler Gets in a Body Blow on
Fence Fixer Sherman.

WASHINGTON, March l3.-Eustis took
the floor and referred to the statements
made by Hoar yesterday, one of them
being that in the state OF Louisiana and
some of the other states there we're laws
which made it a penal offense for a white
man to associate on terms of equality with
a negro. Another was to the effect that
there was a law which provided for any
colored man found for a certain time out
OF work to be sold, and that his former
master should have the preference in the
purchase. He denied emphatically that
there was any such law in Louisiana, and
spoke OF the recklessness and destltution
of the sense of responsibility with which
Republican senator's spoke of Southern
affairs.
Hoar said he might have erred as to the
state in which such a law was passed, but
quoted them substantially from the laws
of Mississippi passed in 1865. He thought
that substantially the same law had been
enacted in Louisiana.
The educational bill then came up, and
Blair made a brief address. He also read
extracts from a speech of President Har-
rison when senator In 1880, favoring the
bill. and SAID the president held the same
sentiments today.
The Southern question came up again.
and Hoar admitted that his statements
about the laws of Louisiana were IN
correct.
Sherman asked Eustls whether he did
not know that the fifteenth amendment
never would have been proposed out for
the fact that the laws of Southern states
were depriying the negro of the rights of
citizenship.
Eustls replied that it was his honest
conviction that all reconstruction measures
were adopted by The Republican party
with the single object of Africanizing the
South and maintaining political supre.
macy and characterized it as the greatest
crime ever committed against civilized
communities.
Sherman then took part In the discus
sion, which became a heated political con-
troversy. He traced the course of the
reconstruction movement and said that at
the close of the war it had not been con
templated to arm the negro with suffrage,
but that the laws passed by some of the
Southern states were so unjust to the
colored people and to the white Republi
cans In the South that the people OF the
North became convinced that the
object in the South was to over
throw the results of the war
and deprive the freedmen of all their
rights of citizenship. When the time
came it was seen there was no way to
protect the emancipated people except by
armIng them with suffrage. Congress
had reluctantly and slowly, but deliberately
adopted that remedy as the only one
fitted for the case. He (Sherman) had
sometimes thought it might possibly have
been better not to have adopted the tf-
teenth amendment comforting suffrage on
colored men, because that right had been
nullitied and %uprooted. The result of the
fifteenth amendment was practically to
give the Southern states increased repre-
sentation in the house of representatives
and increased power in the electoral col
lege. If there was anything wrong in
the situation OF Southern affairs the peo-
pie of the South had brought it on them.
selves. There was no following of hate
in the North against the South. If equal
rights of all the people in the South
were secured, the people of the North
would be satisfied. The fifteenth amend.
ment had not turned out as was expected,
because no man had dreamed that such
measures as had been resorted to in the
South would be resorted to to deprive the
negro of his rights. Noone had dreamed
of Ku Klux Khan and all the savage
machinery by which that exclusion had
been perfected.
Butler suggested that the reconstruc-
ton measure and the fifteenth amend
ment were not so much due to obiectional
legislation in the South as to the conflict
between Andrew Johnson and a Republi.
can congress.
Sherman replied that the selection of
Andrew johnson, a Southern man and a
Democrat, for vice president was proof
of the generous treatment the North had
shown the South, but johnson had desert
ed the Republican party and turned his
back upon it when he came into power,
and congress tied his hands and pre-
vented the carrying out of his policy.
Butler-Then | understand the senator
from Ohio to admit hat the Southern
people we're not alone responsible, but
that Andrew Johnson, his president, was
more responsible for the enactment of
extreme measures against the South.
Sherman look upon Andrew John
son as a Southern man and a Democrat.
Butler-He was your Republican presl-
dent and the people OF the South had no
other authority to look to alter they sur
rendered except the executive.
Sherman-The Southern people had a
right to look to congress as the governing
power of the country. Sherman went on
to say to the senators on the other side
that there is a feeling in the North that
not only have the negroes of the South
been deprived of their votes, but that the
people of the South now enjoy larger
political power than the same number of
people in the North. Let the South
obey the constitutional amendments, let
it give the negro his vote and permit him
to vote as he will and | would
not care if the whole of the negroes would
vote the Democratic ticket. But this
feeling of injustice docs prevail in the
North: that while you are depriving the
colo-ed people of their votes you are ex-
ercislng undue power iu the government.
The North denies hatred, but demands
Justice, and now | say that beyond and
above this educational bill, or any other
pending measure, is an act of congress
that will secure every man in the | nited