The western sentinel. [volume] (Winston-Salem, N.C.) 1887-1926, 1890-02-06

tion of the United States, had after
wards done any act in aid of the rebel
lion, and by thrusting with military
force upon the ballot-box the entire
mass of emancipated slaves, to whom
the right to vote had been given by no
law, human or divine, known to our
federative system. By the C,nstitu-
ton thus forced upon the Southern
people the negroes were msde voters
and Invested with the like privileges
in all respects as the white people.
The Constitution of the United
States had in like manner been so
amended as to forbid the States from
making any discrimination against
the negro race, or in any manner inn
pairing the rights which had thus
been conferred upon them. Again,
we in the South thought we had ar
rived at the end Of our troubles con
nected with the negro question.
Surely, we reasoned, as the colored
man is now free, as he is made by law,
State and Federal, equal with the
white man in all respects, and has
been given the ballot to protect him.
self in these rights, surely the matter
will now be at rest We can close
the chasm which the agitation about
him has created between us and our
Northern neighbor. Again, were we.
sadly mistaken. After forty yeas of
bitter agitation, four years Of bloody
war. and near a quarter of century
more of trial, under the new order of
things, the negro again "bobs up Sc
renely," and for his sake we are today
threatened not only with political
agitation sufficiently disastrous within
itself, but with servial war whose
weapons shall be the midnight torch
and the assassin's dagger, and wfose
victims shall be sleeping women and
children:
This agitation and this threatened
war is to arise from one of two facts:
Either the friends of the negro in the
North are disappointed because their
we'll laid schemes of reconstruction
failed to secure the Republican party
any aid from the Southern States, or
because their reasonable expectations
and hopes as to the colored mans ca
pacity for helping himself and for
governing others have been grievous
ly wrecked.
The Senator from Kansas, in his
speech few days ago, Indignantly
denied the former assertion, and put
the action of his friends all together
upon the high ground of benevolent
patriotism. He .as so candid in I'D
mitting the fault of his people for the
introduction of slavery into this coun-
try, and for its retention in the North
until it ceased to be profitable, that l
was in hopes to hear him admit with
| equal candor that the whole schemes
| of reconstruction was intended for
pal tisan Republican purposes. l con
cede this to him, however, and can
didly admit that he does SO believe,
and that, perhaps, he is the only sane
man in Europe or America who is of
this opinion. Taking it, then, upon
his ground, is it any wonder that the
truth compelled him to say:
"But it can no longer be denied
that suffrage and citizenship have
hitherto not justified the anticipation
of those by whom they we're conferred.
They have not been effective in the
hands of the freedmen, either for at
tack or defense"
| In other words, here is a frank adj
mission that twenty five years of free
dom and nearly as much of citizen
ship has proven a lamentable failure.
It is true that he says the whites in
the South are to blame for it; that
they have employed force, violence
and fraud, of which I will say more
hereafter. I will only now make this
suggestion: Ifil be true that in States
where they lars fely outnumber the
whites they are either intimidated
from voting or are defraudei in the
counting Of their votes, is that not a
strong argument against their sup
posed capacity for self government
Are people fit to govern themselves
| and others who would suffer them
selves thus to be treated? Is any mar
worthy of freedom who requires con
stantly to be tutored and protected IL
its exercise3 Is a man fitted to run 6
race who has to be held up in order
that he may walk? I have, indeed
heard of beef which had to be hele
up in order to he knocked down, t.
fill an army contract, hut / have no
known men fit for freedom who woulo
be deferred from its exercise in the
face of inferior numbers. Is ther'
anything in the sentiment of the poe
who says:
"Hereditary bondsmen, know ye not
Who would be free themselves
Must strike the blow"
The Senator says:
"That no other people on the fac
of this earth have ever submitted t,
the wrong, the injustice which hav,
been for twenty five years heaped up
ON the colored men Of the South, with
out revolution and blood"
More than once this is repeated. l
constitutes the burden of his speech
around which is clustered the bright
est display of rhetorical pyroteohnic
ever employed to conceal paucity Q
J ideas by the gorgeousness of phraseol
ogy. The rhetorical display acros
, the forensic heavecs reminded me for
chilly of an astronomers description
of the remarkable tenuity of the tai
of certain comet. He said that il
length was q. hundred million miles a
, it stretched athwart the skies-tha
, its breadth was $4,000 miles-and ye
, the solid matter which it contains
could be condensed anu transported i
J . one horse cart. ] listened and liz
/ tened with tha greatest enforso;nu NOR