Year: 1867

4 c&u CItlZ0HBs


Our readers will have observed late
order Of General Sickles, forbidding the
ipublic whipping of men in his military


department Governor Worth, of North


Carolina, went to Washington to pro-


test against this action of General Sick


les, and he states in his Message that


the State was "astonished" at the pro-


hibition ''to execute the laws which


have existed with US and our ancestors


for many hundred years." The Presi-


dent, after hearing Governor Worth,


promptly annulled the order of General


Sickles, and thereby directed that the


public fogging of men should be re-


sumedin part of the country in which


there is no valid authority but that of


the United States.


Now that we may all understand ex-


actly what it is that General Sickles for


bade and the President permits, we re-
fer them to the private testimony which


we received from a gentleman lately
connected with a court-martial sit
ting in Raleigh, North Carolina.


He states that erery day during
about month, while the state court
was recently sitting at Raleigh, there
was crowd of nearly five hundred peo-
pie outside the courthouse witnessing
the public whipping of colored men as
fast as they were convicted and senten-
ced to be whipped by the Court; and
to see the victims of the same court sold
at auction for term of years-three
years being the usual term. He says
that the people were exultant when the
Presidents order came prohibiting the
soldiers from interfering with this treat
ment of the colored people. He knew
one case in which three hundred lashes
were laid on.


The same gentleman states that this
sentence of whipping operates in
North Carolina as civil disqualified
ton, so that none of these victims, ac-
cording to the local law, could ever vote,
even if the suffrage was extended to
colored men. They are disqualified in
advance.


Thus the freedmen are still pursued
and sacrificed by the ancient laws of
Slavery, and thus the rage of the baf-
fed rebellion expends itself upon the
most helpless and unfortunate of the
population. Yet all these tragedies
should constantly remind US that the
late dominating class in the Southern
States are poisoned to the very marrow
by the system of Slavery; and that no
duty of this nation is now so solemn
and paramount as to take care that the
late slaves shall not be tortured. No
plea of State law or local law; no fear
Of national Intervention or Capitalization
or consolidation should prevent the
people of the United States from pro-
tecting those who are hated and perse-
cuted because of their fidelity to the |
If for a single year the |
white people of the late rebel States
should be made to suffer what the col
pred people there have endured for gen.
erations the world would cry out with |
shame and horror. The President of |
.he Georgia Senate, in some recent in
solent remarks upon the question of re-
organization, haughtily said that even
he worm may turn. Let him ponder
nis words. Let him, and all for whom
he speaks, understand clearly that such |
words in the mouths of those who, after
he most unspeaksble crime, are offered
he most unprecedented clemency, are
but in the mouths of those
Who are guilty of the most intolerable
neanness and tyranny toward others
'uch words are indescribabIe.


General SickIes may be very sure
hat his wise and humane order has not
ost him any friends among the loyal
'eople of this country. And the Presi-
lent may be equally sure that he has
lot gained any by his conduct in that
natter.-Hdrper's Weekly.