The Manning times. [volume] (Manning, Clarendon County, S.C.) 1884-current, 1903-03-11
THE RACE ISSUE
Senator Tillman Speaks Of the Negro
il Slavery Days.
BE RELATES SOME PLAIN FACTS
The Charge of Harriet Beecher
St0we's in Her Vile Book
Shown TO be
Untrue.
THE RACE ISSUE
BE RELATES SOME PLAIN FACTS
The Charge of Harriet Beecher

blem will be found interesting ana M
Structive:
I want to direct your attention 70 d
remarkable fact in the history Oh olilS
country, which can not be TOO nucn
6welt upon. When the Southern
white men, from l6 to 80 years OF age,
all them living in the cotton States,
$ except few in the mountains, had
left their homes during the civil war
S to follow the standards OF Lee and
Jackson, Of Johnston and Forrest.
s and when there were absolutely no
Z men there except the old men above
s go and SIS and the little SchoClbovS-
and the country then was much less
thicsly populate than it IS now and
4 altogether more agricultural-wIth
over 100000 negroes there were at
least 100000 males of adult age,
slaves scattered throughout the
breadth Of the land, from the Poto-
mac to the Rio Grande, and the wives
and daughters of their masters were
left to their care and protection.
The negroes knew the war was TO
settle the question of their future
liberty or continued slavery. II there
; existed in their hearts any cause lor
hatred and resentment and desire
for revenge, such as you gentlemen IN
your youth were led to believe existed
from reading Harriet Beecher Stoves
novel and other sources OF lnforma-
tion, and when oratory poured out its
plea for the poor, downtrodden Afrl-
these people had then been
imbued with one-tenth Of the hatreo
Of the whites which exists to-day,
what would have been the conSe-
unences upon the helpless white wo-
men and children then living among
theme The very Imagination paiiS
at the picture of rapine and murder
and of the cruelties and horrors OF
which we have read in Hayti and San
Domingo. Yet they were slaves and
had, as YOU believe, ample cause TOR
revengue and hate.
But what are the facts Senators:
During those four dark years there IS
not Of record solitary case where a
negro man wronged a white woman.
What is the situation now? Take
your morning paper and read it any
DAY in the year, and there is hardly a
daY-in which our senSibihtleS are not
wrought up and our passion excited
or our pity aroused by some tale OF
horror and Of woe.
I tell YOU from my own experience
aud observation that the old sense OF
security and Of love and friendship on
the part Of the negro for his white
master and his mistress and the cnllo-
rem, which I myself experienced 10
nv boyhood, has gone. With the
remnant Of the old negroes who were
born il slavery and had some OF that
training (all of whom are now neces-
sariIy above 4O gone, the last restraing
and conservative element among them
will have disappeared. They nave
been taught that they are the equals
of the whites. During the reconStruc-
tion period, when they had ne ballot
and professed to govern, am levleo
taxes and marched themselves I'll the
statehorses, constantly sQuandering
and stealing of our substances, they
learned their lesson well. They tasted
blood. They were innoculated with
the virus of license, not liberty.
Among the dusky millions who were
held in bondage there were, of course,
MANY who had been cruelty wrongeo
and suffered injustice, but the over
whelming majority of them had nofeel-
ing for their masters and their faml-
lies except love and veneration. Iney
looked up to them as superior beings.
They felt the obligations Of the trusts
which had been reposed in them, and
many Of them were true unto death.
The fact which can not be disputed IS
one to give US pause when we under
take to analyze the present conditions.
A great poet tells us that those who
love liberty must first deserve it. So
the Door African has become a lend,
seeking whom he may deyour, and
filing our penitentiaries and our jalls,
lurking around to see if some helpless
white woman can be murdered or
brutalized. Yet he can read and write.
He has little Of the veneer OF educa-
tion and civilization, according to
New England ideas.
7 do not blame the New England
people. They have none, or few, OF
The negroes. The whole number be-
yond New York would not equal the
negroes in my county. The people up
there can afford to theorize and to de-
termine upon the life and death OF
the civilization Of the South from
their standpoint Of sentimentallty, II
they are willing, but do not believe
they are willing. do not believe they
want to. I give him credit for more
love of humanity and of their kind
than to bring on a conhct of that sort.
# there were no higher motives, l
give them credit for more statesman
ship. But, with the constantly IN
creasing hatred between the races,
with the'older white men. acquainted
with the better negroes, dying Oft, as
they are doing rapidly: with the old
negroes, the grandfathers of the race.
dying off rapidly, as they are doing, IN
a yerv short while those who know
ANYTHING Of the relation Of the slave
and the master in the old days will
have disappeared and gone.
And then the younger'generatlon OF
white men, who are hating these ne
groes in return, whose anmoSlty and
antagonism grow apace with these
acute situations and conditions, have
got to face this problem. thank God
sometimes that will not live TO see
the thing brought to a focus. am
endeavoring in my feeble way to Deg
you, for Gods sake, not to help pro-
duce tnat acute stage Of fever and race
hated and carry it through until you
bring into people those angry passions
which will put the races at each 9TH