Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1890-01-30

Il
| Presidential election: but | warn those
who are perpetrating these wrongs upon
( the suffrage that the North and the
Northwest will not consent to have their
institutions, their industries, their wealth
and their civilization changed, modified
or DESTROYED by Government resting
upon deliberate and habitual suppress
ion of the colored vote or any other vote,
by force or by fraud. Sooner or later
there will be armed collision between
the races. The South is standing upon
a volcano. The South is sitting on the
safety valve. They are breeding innu-
merable John Browns and Nat Turner'S.
Already mutterings of discomfort by
hostile organizations are heard. The
use of the torch and the dagger is ad-
vised. | deplore it; but as God is my
face of the earth have ever submitted to
the wrongs and injustice which have
been for twenty-five years put upon the
culored men of the South without revo-
luton and blood. Applause from the
negroes in the gallery.
The conduct of the colored race has
been beyond all praise. They have been
pafient: they have been loyal; they have
been docile to their masters and to the
country. Timon, of Athens, said: 1T
is not enough to help the feeble, but to
support him after" Until 1877, the un-
stable fabric erected by the architects
of reconstruction was upheld by the
military authority of the United States,
and, when this was withdrawn, the in
congruous edifice toppled headlong and
vanished, ''llke the baSeleSS fabric of a
vision"
Mr. ingalls, went on to warn the South
of the natural consequences of its course
toward the colored people. Despotism,
he said, makes Nihilists. Injustice is
the great manufactory of dynamite. \
man who is a thief robS himself. An
adulterer pollutes himself. A murderer
inf1icts deeper wound ON himself than
that which slays his victim. The South,
in mp )Sing chains on the African race,
lays heavier manacles on itself than
those with which it burdens the helpless
slave. And those who are denying to
American citizens the privileges of free
dom should remember that there is moth
ing so Improbable as injustice, and that
God is an unrelenting creditor silent
it may be, tardy and slow it may be,
but inexOrIble and relentless. Be
hind the wrOngdoer stalks the menacing
specter of vengeance and of retribution.
| said that | was not in favor of the
AfricaniZatiOn of this continent or of
any part of it. But if the methods of
the Chalmers campaign and of the Jack
son campaign, and of the proceedings at
Aberdeen, are illustrations of the tenn
per and spirit and purpose of the people
of that State toward the Government of
the United States and its citizens, l
would thousand fold prefer that every
rood of that State should be occupied by
an African rather than by those who at
present inhabit it.
He went on to say that race antago-
nism applied only to the eolOred man in
the South when he desired to vote the
Republican ticket If the colered men
there were all Democrats the race ques-
tion would be over. Four solutions of
the problem, he said, had been suggested
.emigra'i IN, determination, adsOrp-
tiOn and disfranchisement- there
was still fifth solution which had never
been tried; and that solution was Justice.
| appeal to the South, he exclaimed, to
try the experiment of justice. And if,
after the experiment has been fairly and
honestly tried. it appears that the Afri-
can race is incapable of civilization; if it
appears that the complexion burnt upon
him by an Indian sun is incompatible
with freedom, will pledge myself to
consult with YOU about some measure
of solving the race problem, but until
then nothing can be done. The citizen
ship of the negro must be absolutely
recognized. His right to vote must be
admitted, and the ballots that he casts
must be honestly counted. These are
the essential preliminaries, the condi-
tions precedent to any consideration of
the ulterior and fundamental questions
of race supremacy or race equality in the
United States, North or South. Those
who freed the slaves ask nothing more;
they will be content with nothing less.
The experiment must be fairly tried, this
is the starting point and this is the goal.
The longer it is deferred, the greater will
be the evaporation, and the more doubt
full the final result.
THE man who uses up every energy