The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1890-03-14
ISLANDERS ON THE SOUTH.
SENATOR EUsTIS CALLS SENATOR
HOAR TO TIME.

AnC0 WIN bu0 4 dCI5-SoDaJOr Sn6r-
man Pretes About Denial of the
Right to Vote to the Negro.
WASHINGTON, March 13.-In the Senate
to-day Mr.. Eustis referred to two state
ments made by MIR. Hoar yesterday in
reference to the southern states, one Of
them being that in the state of Louisiana,
and in some of the other states, there were
laws which made it penal offense. punish
able by imprisonment in the penitentiary
for a white man to associate on terms of
equality with black man. He asserted
that there was not the slightest foundation
for such statement. The other statement
by Mr.. Hoar was to the effect that there
was another law in Louisiana which pro-
vided for the sale of any colored man found
for a certain time out of work, and that his
former master should have a preference in
the purchase. He asked Mr.. Hoar whether
be could find any such law on the statute
books of Louisiana
HOAR CITES HIS AUTHORITY.
Mr.. Hoar read from volume of the laws
of Mississippi passed in 1865 an act pro-
viding that freedmen, free negroes and mu-
lattoes who were found with no lawful en-
ployment, and that all white men assem-
bling with freedmen, free negroes and
mulattoes, or usually associatlng with them
on terms of equality, should be deemed
vagrants, and should be subject to punish
ment by fine and imprisonment. That law.
he said contained the two provisions TO
which he had referred; and he thought that
substantially the same law had been enacted
in Louisiana.
The Blair educational bill came up as the
unfinished business and Mr. Blair took the
floor, but yielded to Mr.. Call, who asked
leave to offer preamble and resolution in
reference to the nomination of Judge
Swayne and District Attorney STRIPPING of
Florida. After the reading of a long pre-
amble, Mr.. Chandler made the point of
order that the resolution referred to execu-
tive business, and that point having bee1
sustained Mr.. Call withdrew the resolution
for the time being.
HoAR WAS IN ERROR.
Subsequently Mr.. Hoar obtained another
volume of the laws of Mississippi, and read
from it provisions in reference to the col
ored people as justification of his state
ment.
Mr.. Eustis pressed his question as to MIR.
Hoar's statements yesterday, and Mr.. Hoar
admitted that so far as his statement con-
cerned Louisiana he was in error.
Mr.. Sherman asked Mr.. Eustis whether
he did not know that the Fifteenth amend
ment never would have been proposed but
for the fact that the laws of the southern
states were depriving the negro of his rights
of citizenship. That, he said, was certainly
fact.
Mr.. Eustis replied that it was his honest
conviction that all the reconstruction meas
ures, all the extreme legislation and consti-
tutlonal amendments were adopted by the
Republican party with the single object of
Africanizing the south and maintaining
political supremacy, and he characterized it
as the greatest crime ever committed
against civilized communities"
HEATED POLITICAL CONTROVERSY.
Mr.. Sherman then took part in the discus
sion, which soon became a heated political
controversy. He said that when the civil
war was ended there was q universal feeling
in the north that the best way to solve the
difficulties of the time was to restore to the
people of the south their state governments.
with all the powers attached thereto, with
the limitation and qualification of protect
ing the rights of all citizens, black and
white x 1t had not been con-
templated at that time to arm the negro
with suffrage. But the laws passed by
some of the southern states had been so
unjust to the colored people and so unjust
to the white republicans in the south that
the people of the north became convinced
that the object in the south was to overthrow
the results Cf the war, and to deprive the
freedmen of ell the rights of citizenship
When the time had come that it was seen
that there was no way to protect the eman-
cipated people except by arming them with
suffrage, congress had, reluctantly, slowly,
but deliberately adopted that remedy as the
only one fitted for the case There had
been no feeling of passion or hate about it.
POSSIBLY A MISTAKE
He (Mr. Sherman) had sometimes thought
that it might possibly have been better not
to have adopted the fifteenth amendment,
comforting suffrage on the colored man,
because that right had been nullified and
uprooted. The right of suffrage did not
now exist with the colored men wherever it
might be valuable to them. The result of
The fifteenth amendment was practically to
give to the southern states increased repre-
sentation in the House of Represent atives
and increased power in the electoral college,
IL there was any thing wrong in the stu :
alton of southern affairs, the people of the
south had brought it on themselves.
After some further remarks Mr.. Sher-
man said: "Let me say to the senators on
The other side, in all seriousness, that there
Is feeling in the north that injustice has
grown out of the fifteenth amendment, and
that not only have the negroes of the south
been deprived of their votes, but that the
people of the south now enjoy larger politi-
cal power than the same number of people
of the north.
NEGRO REPRES ENTATIoN.
You have thirty-odd members Of the
House Of Representatives based upon negro
representation. Now let the south do as it
ought to do. Let it obey the constitutional
amendments. Let it give the negro his vote
and permit him to vote as he will. We are
not there to control him. We are not there
TO drive him. And | would not care if the
whole of the negroes voted the democratic
ticket. But this feeling of injustice does
prevail in the north-a feeling
tdat, while you are depriving the colored
people Of their votes, you are exercising an
undue power in the government and until
that is remedied, either through the negro
voting or through the negro being excluded
from the basis of representation, there
never will be a feeling of content and
equality among the people of the northern
states. And now you complain of
as. For what9 For injustice, wrong,
violence or bloodshed9 No; you complain
OF us that we hate yon. We deny hatred,
but we demaud justice, and until the south
ern states give these colored people their
rights under the constitution there will he
dlsquiet and discomfort and feeling of in
Justice. | trust thet the time will come
when even this feeling will disappear and