The semi-weekly messenger. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1897-1908, 1900-02-20
RUSSELL ON

-
are concerned. and with no concern as
% the facts OF history. Dan put on the
red cap Of revolution, and made a
wholesale assault upon the white men
or North Carolina, as he once made
upon the neSroes who put him in office.
when he branded them. one and all as
"savages. He charges that a consid-
cradle portion Of the white democrats
IN North Carolina are hypocrites and
frauds of the first water-only McKin-
ley republicans in disguise. He SAYS
they Will vote with the real democrats
because OF the negro and for no other
~reason-that at heart they are no dem
ocrats, but p~retenders and deceivers-
that they will pray for McKinley's re-
election and pray for his policy. We do
not know how the democrats referred
TO will relish such a stigma, such a
charge of Righteousness. OF falsity. Of
duplicity. of imposition. Russell has
been but a half and half republican for
a long time, and he is disposed to
measure other peoples corn with his
bushel. "All looks jaundiced to the
Jaundiced eye" Nothing he can say
can worry true democrats. According
to Russell there are thousands of them
who are out and out republicans. who
are centraiizers, high p~rotectionists,
expansionists, gold men. holding, ne
says every tenet OF the republican
party" But for the Niger, the say
ages" they would all turn over TO the
party of Capitalization, of Imperialism,
of high tariff taxation, of Internal
force bills, and so on. Not satisfied
with slandering and insulting a part of
the democracy, he insists that this
nnrt hoe tIrifnl NTH -ha r--na ta- ,a--
ito defy the national government by
fragrant, persistent and successful null
LITIGATION of it's constitution and its
laws: And to this notification the
north has submitted to an extent hat
looks like conformation if not approval"
This is Russell's charge. Is it true?
When has the democracy of North Car
DINA done these things? So far from
multiplying the constitution they are
the only people in this state in the
south, who have stood bravely for the
constitution, la fought at every step
the republican opponents of a strong
government, have resisted the uSurpa-
tons of republican administrations,
have deteSted and ~despised the rascals
who placed the ballot box upon bayo-
nets, surrounded the voting places with
a Gordon, of creatures appointed under
force bills, have met all assault upon
human liberty and the rights of the
people under the constitution with open
denunciations, and under every change
and every threatened danger to the
PresciouS munimentS of freedom have
been the only bulwarks an
archy and law, between outrage and
right, between a government of the
people and by the people and for the
people Ca sentiment Abe Lincoln stole
from a New England teacher) and a
lawless, aggressive government of in
iquity and crime.
Russell knows better than to indulge
in this vein of Islander. He knows how
corrupt, how vicious, now malignant,
how riotous and greedy his gang have
been in North Carolina from the time
they sold out to the johnson govern
ment at Washington for the loaves and
fiShes-from the time he was elected
judge when he knew no law. He
knows how the white men were f1eeced,
oppressed, insulted, by the victorious
raiders composed of s~callawags and
carpet-baggerS. He lived in it and
through it. He is a nice fellow to be
throwing stones at the rue white men
Of this ancient state. He can say
sharp, cutting things, and can throw
mud with any mud singer, and he can
not forego the pleasure of insulting
and maligning the meE he deserted in
time of stress and gloom, when every
true man with conscience and heart
''stood four-square," to quote Tenny-
sons words on the Duke of Wellington.
What Senator McEnery said in the
United States senate SO impressively
and truly of Louisiana under negro
rule, negro suffrage, and then under
white rule when the state had been re-
covered from the ravening robbers.
both white and black, applies as well
to North Carolina. We have not space
for it, for it would require q column
perhaps or more. We make tits edify-
ing quotation: \.
Review the history of negro suffrage
in Louisiana. When first exercised by
the negro, he fell under the power of
the c~arpetbagger. The entire negro
vote was moved by one influence; it
was one aggregation. 1t was kept solid
by continuous, unremitting attention,
by promises of land and mules, by
threats Of a return to slavery. by
promises of social equality with the
white, by the encouragement of race
prejudices. When the power Of the
| CdTpelDdSSeT was DTOheI, the negro
fell under the domination Of the whites.
He was tratable as when under the
power of the ca~rpetbagger. He voted
just as his immediate employer in the
country dictated hin to vote. He had
no will of his own. In some localities
it was so well known that the entire
vote of the plantation would be cast
| according to the views of the proprie-
tor that the presence of the negro at
the polls was dispensed with. In the
cities and towns where they were not
employed in large numbers by any one
person, they soon learned the money
value Of their votes, and through
chosen leaders would sell to the highest
bidder"
Russell may fling his inuendoes and
slander at better men than he is, but
there are two things written, and they
will live: The state of North Carolina
will never again be placed at the mercy
of negroes misled and controlled by
rapacious, unprincipled, reckless white