The commonwealth. (Greenwood, Miss.) 1896-1923, 1902-05-16

mOS4Gy, rOS6 III IHelT WI@Gu, lJnCuSu
the supreme court and declared that
Africans should be part of the peo-
pie" and citizens under the constitution
The white people of the United States,
following the example of the republi-
can party, sometimes lynch part of
the people" for crimes that are beyond
the pale Of humanity.
The Constitution recognized African
slavery and provided for its protection
When Mr.. Lincoln was elected presi-
dent he took solemn oath to support
tkat Constitution, yet, in 1862, when
Mcclellan had been defeated in front
of Richmond. when the anti-war party
was alarmingly on the increase in the
North and affairs looked generally
gloomy to Mr.. Lincoln, he did not hes
itate to lynch the Constitution.
Mr.. Wells, who was one of Mr.. Lin
coins confidential advisers and who
wrote the book entitled Lincoln and
Seward, says that when Lincoln deter
mined to issue his emancipation procla-
nation, Mr.. Seward, who had lived in
the South, was appalled, at the prospect
of a servile insurrection and wholesale
slaughter Of unprotected women and
children which he feared the proclama-
tion would precipitate And when he
expressed his grave apprehension of the
horrors of a general massacre in the
rear of the Confederate armies, Mr.
Lincoln coldly and resolutely announc-
ed that 'the time had arrived when we
must know whether the slave element
is for us or against u.s." How could the
slave element " in that dark hour Of
Mr.. Lincoln's defeat, be for him except
by murder and pillage in rear of Con-
federate Army?
If the negro had responded to the
proclamation, as was anticipated, Mr.
Lincoln would have treated the world
to IAN exhibition of lynch law that
would have taken rank with the record
made by the Duke of Alva in the Meth
erlands.
Mr. Mckinley, having accepted the
lynching of the Constitution and Su-
preme Court, by his own party, as au-
lucrative, proceeded to appoint worth
less and dissolute negroes as postmast-
ers over white people in the South, but
never in the North, When the people
Of South Carolina lynched one Of his
postmasters it was sought to make the
lynchers amenable to the criminal law;
then outraged public sentiment re-
volted and lynched the criminal law.
Thus, finally, the cause reached the
court of last appeal the people in their
majesty, the source of all power, and
their decision must stand, and will
stand till the root of the evil is dug up
and cast out from the soil of free, rep
resentative, constitutional government,
organized by white men, to be admins
tered by white men, for white men.
The white people of the South are lov-
ers of peace, law and order, and the
moment the abnormal condition is re-
moved, lynching, following the law of
cause and effect, will die a natura
death. No we'll informed man will now
deny that the 'Ku KluX Klan" deliver
ed the Southern States out Of the hands
of the negro, the Northern thief and, the
Southern traitor-that ,''rankest COM
pound Of v1llainous scent that ever of
Tended nostril;" yet when authority had
been restored to its rightful hands, the
Ku Klux disappeared in night like
the vision of dream. Lynchsng will
go the same way the moment that rape
and murder, by the negro, take the
route of their polluted progenitor-car-
pet-bag rule.
Let us accept the situati on and deal
with its abnormal conditions, wisely,
discreetly, quietly, but with swift and
relentless vengeance. What we need is
not to stop the lYnching but to quiet
the noxious elamor of thoughtlesg ed
itors, egotistical bishops and blatant
preachers of the Quincy Ewing stripe.
Their noise is not only silly and insult
ing to the exalted womanhood of the
South, but it is criminal because it en-
courages the very crime which we are
striving, by desperate measures, to sup
press.
When the Federal soldier entered the
prison cell of Jefferson Davis to fasten
the iron fetters upon his emaciated
limbs, he apOlogized by saying it was
hie d7tI5 to Ohav Ordara Mr. Davis rn-