Year: 1877

Having clothed the colored man with the
rights Of citizenship and promised him in
the Constitution full protection for those
rights, it now remains to be seen how far
our plighted faith to him is to be kept.
The question, while it is invested with equi-
ties of the most sacred character, is not with
out its difficulties and embarrassments.
Under the policy adopted by the Democrats
in the late insurrectionary States, the col
ored citizen has been subjected to a reign OF
terror which has driven him from the en-
ioyment of his rights and leaves him
as much nOnentity in politics, un-
less he obeys their behests, as he was
when he was in slavery. Under this con-
dition of things the colored race to-day,
while if properly protected in their rights
would hold political supremacy in Missis-
sippi, Georgia, South Carolina, Louisiana,
Alabama, and Florida, have but one United
States Senator and four Representatives in
Congress, while in their home governments
they are nearly or quite blotted out.


The Philadelphia Times has an able
though somewhat prejudiced article on the
subject of the negro and his relations with
politics, from which we extract somewhat
literally, 1t says:


As long as he was slave the whole country
had an interest in his welfare; humanity itself
was deeply concerned for his fate. 1t was i'm
possible that this Government should be peace
ful and prosperous while many millions OF its
people were in bondage The outraged, al
though smothered, manhood of the slave was
perpetual menace TO the slave-Owner
Slavery was a curse to the slave, a curse to the
master, and the humanitarian North was hu-
inflated and stung in its conscience by the
perpetual reminder at home and abroad that
such an institution was tolerated and even
protected in q land that prOfessed to be q
refuge for the oppressed of all climes. When
the slave became the freedman the North felt
that another duty remained for 1t to perform
and that was to put the freedman in position
in which he might maintain his freedom
This was accomplished so far ~ 1t could bC
accomplished through the machinery of legis
latiOn, when the ballot was placed in the
frccdman's hands This was the capstone o
| emancipati on, and that we should have stoppcI
there few will now deny.


We feel constrained to dissent from thu
correctness of the closing proposition OF thu
above paragraph. We hold that it is thu
| DONHutll uNlN VI pbNtI
the Constitution TO assure to each State
republican form Of government. We hold
further, that when State permits ma
iOrty Of its citizens to be disfranchse,
through fear, intimidation, assassination
and all the horrors that barbarism can in
vent it ceases To uphold republican form
of government and the constitutional dut,
of the Federal power should intervene t.
secure that end, though it might require tn
army and navy to accomplish that purpose
The Government of the United States, alte
securing the emancipation of the slave an'
after clothing him with suffrage, cannot hon
orpbly abandon him to the horrors that sur
rounds him for the purpose OF abridginI
or controlling his action in the exercise {
his rights as citizen. The Government
should not have stopped" when the ballo
was placed in the freedmans hands by til
Constitution 80 long M it is well know


that those rights are ruthlessly trample'
under foot by Democratic minority, un
der the plea Of home rule. 1t should hav