Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1890-03-14
NATIONS CAPITAL.
Extended Debate on Blit's
Educational Bill.
Committee On Currency Report Adversely
% Various Currency Schemes.
Maine Pensicns-Postal Route Chang
s-Cspdtol Matters.

l I-eAAsO . ~ 08k0A AV0IO S130 -
s-cspitol Matters.
WAsHIsGrox, Mar. l3.-In the Senate
Eu.tis denied the truth Of the statement
made by Hoar yesterday that in Louisixn
and some other Southern States there wer,
laws which made it penal odense punish
able by imprisonment in the penitentiar,
for . white man to associate on terms o
equality with black man, and another Law
in Louisiana provided for the sale Of AM
colored man found for certain time GU
| Of work, that the former master have the
preference in the purchase. There vas NJ
such Law and any pretense that there was
only illustrated with what reckiessness ant
what destituiion Of the sense of responsi
bility the republican Senators spoke oi
Southern Affairs.
Hoar read from q volume Of the laws OF
Mississippi. passed in 1865, an act PRO Tid.
| ing that freedmen. free negroes and mulat.
toes found with no lawful employment
and all white men assembling with freed.
men, free negroes and mulattoes, or usu-
ally sssociating with them. on terms OF
equality, shall be deemed vagrants. and
subject to punishment by fine and impris-
onment. That law. he said, contained the
two provisions to which he referred. and
he thought that substantially the same law
was enacted in Louisiana.
The educational bill was taken up, and
Blair addressed the Senate in reply to GER
tain structures on the bill. He said that
President Harrison favored the bill.
Blair yielded the floor to Hoar, who had
obtained another volume of the laws of
Mississippi. who read from it provisions
with reference to the colored people as a
justification of his statement. He admit
ted that as far as his statement coneerns
Louisiana he was in error.
Chandler read from the police jury rules
Of St. Landry's parish, Louisiana, as bear
ing upon the oppression Of blacks.
Eustis replied that had nothing to do with
the question as to whether HOar's statement
was correct.
Sherman asked Eustis whether he did
not know = fifteenth amendment never
would have been proposed but for the fact
that the laws of the Southern States de-
priving the negro Of his rights Of citizen
ship.
Eustis replied that his honest conviction
were that all reconstruction measures and
all constitutional amendments adopted by
the republican party were for the single
object of Afrlcanizlng the South and main
tanning political supremacy.
Sherman took part in the discussion,
which soon became heated political con-
troversy. He reviewed the legislation en-
acted after the civil war, having for its OBJ
ject the reconstruction of the Southern
States, and said it was not intended At that
time to arm the negro with suffrage, but
the laws passed by some Southern States
were 90 unjust to the colored people and
white republicans in the South. that the
people of tile North became convinced that
| their object in the Senate was to overthrow
the results of the war and deprive the
freed men Of all the rights of citizenship.
There was seen no way TO protect the
colored people except by arming them with
suffrage. and Congress reluctantly, slowly
and deliberately. adopted that remedy
There was no feeling of passion or hate
about it. He (Shermsn) had sometimes
thought that it might possibly have been
better not to have adopted the 18th amend
ment, because the rights of the negro to
suffrage had been nullified and uprooted.
The result of the 18th amendment was
to practically give the Southern States in
creased representation in the House of
Re representatives. and increased power In the
electoral college. If anything was wrong
in the situation of Southern affair the peO-
pie of the South brought it upon tbem
selves. There is no feeling of hate exist
ing in the North against the South. If
equal rights to all people of the South
were secured, the people of the North
would be satisfied. He referred to the ku
Klux Clans and all the savage machinery
by which exclusion of the negro from the
right of suffrage in the South, had been
perfected.
Butler suggested that the reconstruction
measures and the adoption of the 18th
amendment was not so much owing to the
Objectionable legislation in some of the
Southern States as to the conflict between
Andrew johnson an a republican congress.
Sherman replied that the selection of
Andrew Johnston, 4 southern man and q
democrats, for vice-President was another
proof of the generous treatment the North
had shown to the South. Sherman said to
the Senators on the other side, that there
i. feeling in the North that an injustice
has grown out of the 18th amendment and
not only have the negroes Of the South
been deprived of their votes, but the peo
pie of the South now enjoy larger politica!
power than the same number of people
North. Until that is remedied, either
through the negro voting or through the
negro being excluded from the basis of
representation. there will never will be
feeling of content and equality among the
people of the Northern States. Beyond
nd hov tbis Cd finpaI hill opo NJ mi
pending measure, it is an act of Congress
that will secure to every man in the United
States, entitled to vote for his right to cast
a vote and have it counted, an act affecting
Massachusetts and Ohio as we'll as South
Carolina and Mississippi. We insist upon
a law that will protect the right of suffrage
and that law be executed with such power
that no man dare expose himself to its pen
slties. Butler, referring to the administra-
ton of President johnson, said one of the
most unfortunate days that ever come over
the country was the day that brought about
the conflict between the Chief Executive
and legislative department of the United
States Between the executive policy on
one side and the legislative policy on the
other, the South was ground to powder.
Butler referred to the exclusion of the
colored men in the Northern States from
all political offices and said there was no
discrimination in the laws of South Caro-
| lima. Mississippi, Louisiana or Georgia
against q man on account of rice or color
previous to the condition of soRtude. A
number of colored people in those states
were holding offices If the Northern States
would do right to the colored people 3 good
deal of friction would disappear. For the
| last week the newspapers have been teem-
| ing with accounts of white men in Oklaho-
ma (repubhcans among them) announcing
| il the colored people dared assert their
rights to control that territory by reason
of eheir superiority in numbers they would
drive them out at point of the bsyonet. He
had seen within the last month accounts of
ortrages upon colored people in Ohio and
Indiana, of their being pursued to death by
viii e mobs, but had not heard one syllable
| of protest. He believed the great body Of
the people North we're kindly disposed to-
ward the people of the South. The Senator
would find, whenever he attempted to re-
establish in the South those reconstruction
governments, which left in their train the
black mark Of spoilation, disgrace and hu-
initiation, q protest in his own State and
his own country that would cause him to
hesitate before he carried il out to its full
est extent. He appealed to the SENATOR
and people Of the North to believe South
ern men when they said they are far more
interested in orderly, humane, honest set
tlement Of the question than the people Of
the North could possibly be.
This closed the discussion and the Senate
1 vent into executive session and at SIS ad
| jourued until tomorrow.
Further Consideration Of the oklahomi
| BILL