Year: 1868




counties, taken at random, from returns just re-
ceived in the first auditors Office, it appears
that the poll-tax assessed upon the negroes was
Tin round numbers) $4,000, of which only ST.
900 was collected; that is, only one negro in
four pays the trifing poll tax (say 60 cents) as
sessed against him, and it is well known that
the bulk of the sum actually so collected by the
sherifs, was secured by garnisheeing it in the
hands of the employer. Now, in this consti
tuition which you are now preparing, you have
avowedly thrown all of the burdens on property;
and this suffrage article proposes to pass the
| ax-laying power to the negro non-tax payers; !;
as if by some revolution, the Algerines were in
stalled in power over the French people and
beyond the range of the heaviest or finest ord
nance of taxation themselves, should tax impe-
rial France at their. own wild caprice. i


You float habitually the banner with the in
scription, .'The Party of Moral Ideas. n and
you should write on the other side of it, 'Of
Immoral Practices, " for it is not moral ideas
that you are after, but office. You prate inces-
sanity about ''the eternal fitness of things; -
but, like Philosopher Square, you are trying to
get Moe Seagrim up in the loft.


This suggests John Randolphs allusion to
the union between the game keeper and Blifl.
Such is the combination here-an unholy coal
ition between Black George and the Puritan


You call yourself the Republican party of
Virginia There is no Republican party, in any
ineligible sense, in Virginia. You are the ne
crescence on the body polite. You only polled
some fifty white voters in the late election in
this city of Richmond. The Radical members
/ who represent my county on this floor, received
but nineteen white votes Your party is COM
pesed of all the negroes, and Of nothing but
negroes, save few white leaders


You call us the Democratic" side of the
house. We do not represent the Democratic
party The decided majority Of the members
on this side are Wings, and men who struggled
to maintain this Union as men struggle to ex-
tinguish fire at sea. There are men here who
never cast Democratic vote, like the President
of this Convention; men who never voted for
John G.. Breckenridge like the member from
Richmond; men who never wrote pro-slavery
editorials; men who never voted for the ordl-
| nance of secession: men who never matured
plan for the capture of Fortress Monroe; men
who never figured in the Confederate Senate OF
Virginia and voted supplies to carry ON the re-
beon, like a distinguished leader of this house
on that side, from the county OF Henry; men
who never Illuminated their houses on the pas
SAGE of the ordinance of secession, as my col
league from Albemarle is said to have done.


This is neither the Democratic nor the Whlg
side of the House. We represent, in an un
questionable form, the entire white race in Vlr-
ginia. The Radical party is making war on the
white people of the South Defeated in war;
the dominant clement at the North seeks our
absolute ruin. Our sons were slain in battle;
our standards were struck from our hands; our
attempt to govern ourselves in our own way was
crushed by the strong arm OF power; we were
forced back into the Union; our slaves were
freed by proclamation; our traditions and our
cherished opinions were tramped under foot
trampled under foot but this was not the end;
the instruments of torture followed the sharp
edge of the sword, and our newly forged chains
were only the prelude to our being stretched on
| the rack.


What has followed the havoc and the devas
tation of war? what has followed our submls-
sion, and the loss of our slaves? the repudla,a
ton of the Confederate debt, and the repeal OF
| the ordinances of secession?


By course ofunparalleled and Implying leg
slation the lands in the Gulf States have been
reduced to thesvalue Of about ten cents an acre;
our labor system, paralyzed by the threat OF
confscation on the one hand and the hope OF 1t
on the other has been rendered unproductlve;
and with the aid of the bayonet we have been
| given over to negro Conventions warning upon
property and warning ON the Caucasian race, -
| The South is howling wilderness. South Gar
olina and the Gulf States will not recover for
two generations. So awful a ruin-so cold
blooded and cruel destruction-has never been
witnessed between Christian nations. The
scaffold has not been resorted to; that shocked
the sentimental philosophy of the Party Of
Moral Ideas ;" but under, the disguise of the
Universal Brotherhood of Man., you have
broken the hearts of whole people; you have
sent silent and invisible pang into every bo-
| som; you have driven the iron into the soul OF
every father and mother-aye, and almost ev-
cry chid-in the South.


| The Conservative members on this side OF
the hall represent the Agony ofthe White Race
of the South. They sit here to protest against
another revolution Of the screw -and prepared
to endure and to dety: prepared to endure
whatever God in his providence may still have
in store in the way offarther trial and discipline;
and prepare to defy the uncircumcised Phlllstlnes
who have carried off the ark of their liberties
| believing that the finger of Destiny prophecies
and procaims their ultimate deliverance. ~


Mr.. President, I tell you that the white and
the black races cannot live in juxtaposltlon on
this continent on terms of equality. You may
reconstruct this State tomorrow, and Union
day after tomorrow on the basis OF universal
negro suffrage, and ask you what Will be the
consequence if YOU withdraw the military? At
the very first election drought on will not say
how, but brought on by one party or the other)
you will have collision at every precinct In the
State tell you that, antagonlzed as the races
now are and will be, you will have collision at
every precinct in the State.


The only solution to this question is to sep
arate the races-tO separate them as 1T was
found necessary to do in the case OF the Indians,
or to allow the negroes to remain here IN some
state of subordiadtion.


The Southern people are willing to surrender
onethird of their territory absolutely to the ne
gro, and there they may vote, and elect their
own officers, and have their secret leagues and
their funeral associations, to their hearts con-
tent; but if they feel unable to maintain stable
government when left exclusively to themselves
If they cannot bear the idea OF being thrown
on their own resources-if they have an mex
tingushable sentiment that they cannot live
without the conserving presence and influence
of the white man-if they insist on remaining
in our midst and enjoying the benefits of our
superior political capaclty-then it IS but just
that they should make some concession to pro-
cure that advantage-then it is but right that
receiving at our hands social stability and social
order they should be willing to place themselves
under our wing, and, guaranteed In all their
civil rights remain under our political supervi-
sion and control There is not white European
race that would tolerate their presence, and re-
sign to them one-half Of the political power In
the State There is not Northern State, nor
county, nor municipal corporation, that would
do so for one moment-and gentlemen on that
side of the house kno,o 1t.


| Listen to this language:


II am not, nor ever have been, in favor of