Year: 1878

allowed to come into the party with
full privileges, the up-country ascen-
dency will be destroyed and the policy
of the state controlled from the rice
plantations. The South Carolina
whites have shown themselves to be
men Of great address and skill in the
business of government, but they are
evidently puzzled over the new ques-
ton how to allow the blacks to join
their party without permitting them
to rule it."


The Republican should have gone
on and given its readers the solution
of this question as solved by the coun-
ty democratic convention of Edge
field county. Last week that conven-
ton passed the following resolutions:


"We regard the issues between the
white and colored people of this State,
and of the entire South, as an antag-
Onism of race, not a difference of pO-
litical parties. This State and the
United States were settled by the
white race; the lands now belong to
the white race; the white race is re-
sponsible for its government and CIV
ilization, and white supremacy is es-
sential to our continued existence as
people. We are willing to accord to
the colored race equal and exact JUS
tice, and we recognize all of their
rights and privileges under the laws
of this land"


So the Edgetield democrats plainly
say, it is not a difference of politics,
but difference of race that they are
contending for. They declare that no
matter what the majority by ballot is;
they demand white supremacy; they
demand that majority shall not
rule-that it is not democracy they
want, but aristocracy; that the minor
ity shall rule; that the whites shall be
supreme. This is no new thing, it is
only a new plain declaration of the
views they have always entertained.
1t was these views that led to the
Hamburg massacre; twas these views
that led to the forcible carrying, by
the use of shot guns, of the election
in 1876 in Edgefield and other coun-
ties, and by such means employed in
several of the southern states the
democratic party claim that Tilden
was elected president. The Edgefield
county democracy, and they no more
than in most of the south, and in
good degree the democracy of the
nOrth-claim under their white SUI
premacy rule that the colored man
ought not to have voice in the elec-
ton of a president or any other Off
Ger; that the dominant race only has
the right to determine this matter,
and hence Tilden was elected. True
the Edgefield democracy say in con-
Guiding their resolution that they are
willing to accord to the colored race
all their rights, &C., under the law of
the land, but when they say this they
know that they lie, and that their
preceding declaration of white su-
premacy is in direct contradiction of
this latter one; they know that the
law of the land, that democracy pla-
ces the control in the hands of a ma
jority of the legal voters, while they
demand that it shall be in the hands
of a minority. What foolish peo-
pie. What terrible storm they are
gathering about their heads; that
storm will burst some day upon them,
and their class supremacy doctrines
will return to plague and torment the
inventors. Is such government, a
government by race, and that race
in minority-we ask, is such a gov
ernment a republican form of govern
ment? government by the people?
such government, republican in
form, as the federal constitution re-
quires that the national authority shall
guarantee to each state? Most as
suredly not, and right here is the ire
pressibie conflict that to-day is the
point at issue between the two great
political parties it is in eff
feet but a projection of the same old
conflict, springing on either hand
from the same antagonism; it must be
settled and settled right, and it will
be settled right; just how long that
settlement shall be deferred one can
not predict, nor through what tribula.
tions as q people or a nation we shall
pass, cannot be correctly OWNED


but it will come; the wrOnged will
pass over the Red Sea dry shod to fl
nal deliverence.