Year: 1876

THE RADICALS AND THE NEGROES.


The Radical papers have hard work
to get up arguments enough, on their
side Of the Southern election questions,
to satisfy their own consciences and try
to convince their readers Of the justice
Of the attempts Of their partisan leaders
to count out the Democratic votes and
count in Republican ones. They lave
been so long accustomed to bowling
about Southern outrages that they bring
the charge Of intimidation and fraud as
a matter Of course and don't stop for
moment to think about evidence or
proof to substantiate their charge. That
is matter Of Indifference. When, how
ever, any Of them do attempt to offer
any reasons for these charges they make
such fist Of it that it would have been
better for them if they had let it alone.
One Of these lovely reasons is that in
South Carolina and certain portions Of
Louisiana, the negroes largely out
number the whites, and, therefore, they
argue that the Democrats could not
possibly have carried those States
Their argument is that the negroes are
all Republicans and, if let alone, will
vote the Republican ticket. They talk
as if the negroes have no sense at all
about voting and are incapable Of judg-
ing for themselves and must always
vote the tickets they are told to; and
as the Republican party is wholly re-
sponsible for the force Of negro suffrage
they claim the sole right to their votes.
They assumed the odium Of negro suf-
frage for the purpose Of keeping them
selves in power. They thought that
their presumptious claim Of having
"saved the Union" would always be
recognized, that the white men who
were Republicans previous to tho pass
age of the negro suffrage act, would
continue to be so and then with the aid
Of the negroes they would be able always
to keep the government in their hands.
That the negroes would ever exercise an
opinion or judgment Of their own, never
occurred to them, and that they should
do SO and upset all their nice calcula-
tions by voting the hated Democratic
ticket is CALLING in the extreme and
hurts them to the soul, and they can't
and don't want to make up their minds
that they do it voluntarily. hence they
assert that the Democrats ''intimidated"
them. The truth is the better class
and more intelligent Of the negroes have
become disgusted with the carpet-bag
Office hunters who have gone to those
States since the close Of the war, and
with the lying promises made to them
BY the Republican politicians and have
broken from the ranks Of Republicanism
and voted with their former owners,
whom they know, and know that they
can trust. They did this long since in
Virginia, Georgia, Alabama, North
Carolina and other Southern States,
and those States are as peaceful and
rapidly growing as prosperous as before
the war. Seeing this condition oe those
States, and recognizing it as the natural
result Of the welding Of the government
Of those States by the native born white
men of the South, the negroes Of South
Carolina, Louisiana and Florida have
given their assistance to place the gov


ernment of those States 10 the hands Of
the Democrats, and this the Radicals,
unwilling to conoede so much sagacity
on the part Of the negroes, term intimi-
dation, and seek, on this ground, to
throw out the vote Of those States