Keowee courier. [volume] (Pickens Court House, S.C.) 1849-current, 1890-02-20
--No7.

| hls cnllunOOu; no lana so fertile Qs
that he has always titled; no white
man, after all, so honorable and
friendly as those with whom ho was
born and reared. He will not leave
the South voluntarily, and no one
proposes to compel him to 90. l
do not believe the passage of Sena-
tor Buffers bill would effect the
removal of an apprcciablc fraction
of the negro racc in any State. They
ere here to stay.
LIMITATIONS OF FEDERAL POWER,
Let me say another word on this
point. This Government does not
exist to save the negro from the
struggle for his rights. Your rights
and mine, in the last common resort,
are not secured to us by the Govern
ment of the United States. They
are secured to us by our State Gov
ernments aud State laws, but, more
than all, by ourselves, by our intel
ligence, our education, our sclf-rc-
lance, trained and compacted in the
long, stern school of experience.
The negro's rights will never be
secured in any other way.
What can be done, let me ask,
that has not been done? Concede for
the moment that a Federal election
Ia" can be passed and enforced
And what good will this do the
negro? 1t will help, perhaps, to
keep the Republican party in power,
but how, I ask and repeat, will it
help the negro? Is it thought that
with Congress overwhelmingly
Republican, with all the powers of
the Government again in Republican
hands, new laws Or new agencies can
be devised, under our constitutional
limitations, which will protect the
negro in the rights which concern
him most?
We touch here upon tho true
point of all this endless talk of
negro rights and their protection.
| say it is not expected, it is not
imagined, by any sensible lawyer or
public man, that any law can be
devised to reach such results. It can
not be done.
What we can do, what we ought
to do-all we can do, all we ought 20
dds, with profound sympathy for
both races, with words of cheer and
respect for both races, to watch, as
patriotic Americans, the progress
and issue of the grand discipline Of
both races now going forward in the
South. In that spirit I watch it. In
that spirit l speak Of it tonight.
Both races have done better thus
far than any man would have had
warrant for expecting twenty years
ago. They will go forward, if let
alone, to work out that harmony and
peace, that mutual respect for each
others rights, which all true men
long to sec.
1t some ono regrets that this is all
that can be done for the negro,
answer frankly, | do not. l am pro-
foundly thankful that neither your
common, everyday civil rights and
privileges, nor mine, nor the ncgro's
at the South, depend on Federal
Government. I am profoundly glad
they depend solely on the State
Governments, on ourselves. The
deep base and substructurc of our
Federal fabric itself lies in the
power and rights Of the States.
would not, as l value both nation
and States, remove one restriction
from the Federal power or add one
line to its charter of rights. l stand,
| stand now and forever, on the
barriers erected by the Fathers to
restrain the nation and to defend the
States. No negro's, no white mans,
right to vote is worth the sacrifice Of
one little of the just equilibrium of
our constitutional system.
a PLEA FOR GOOD FELLOWSHIP.
But, as have said, and as l per-
nit myself to repeat, there is no
cause of alarm, except to party poll
ticians, except to your Hoars and
Lodges, to your Ingallses and
Chambers. The negro Of the South
is doing well. The white man of
the South is doing well. Close your
ears to these siren voices which sing
the woes of the South. There is
great and constant need of good
feeling, good fellowship between
North and South, between hiassa-
chusctts and South Carolina; there
is always an open and wide field for
private munificence to aid in the