Year: 1875




Manhood, etc.e


NEW YORK, September %, 1875.


The time has arrived when the colored
leaders of the South should carefully study
the alternatives and possibilities of the
political situation in America. 1t is not safe
for them to look only in one direction fol
protection, hopeful as the outlook in this
direction is. They can only fully under.
stand the position of affairs in the New
Wo,ld and the future Of their race by Civ
ing every side of public affairs an impartial
and intelligent scrutiny. Nothing should
dissuade them from this. The first guaran.
tee and test of human rights is civil equality
before the law for citizen OF subject. The
freeman, be he black or white, be he a
member of the American republic or OF the
British constitutional monarchy, must take
an active personal interest in political
affairs. The price of liberty is eternal
vigilance. This applies to ali men at all
times. 1t applies with special and peculiar
force to the colored citizens of the United
States, because it is chief fly through political
forces that the negro in America is to work
out his final deiiverance from the wrongs
which American slavery has heaped upon
him and his.


American politics may be arranged under
five leading classifications. These are:


l. The national Republican party.


2. The national Democratic party.


3. The Confederate monarchists.


A. The Roman hierarchy.


5. The Protestant Alliance.


The first two of these parties now occupy
the political arena of the country to the
apparent exclusion of the others. The other
three forces, though comparatively silent
and inert, are not Indifferent spectators of
the great drama which is now being played
out on the continent They are real and
living forces in the contest, and must
sooner or later take part in it. The Ameri-
can Republican has his own motives for his
political action; 80 has the Democrat SO
of the supporter of the Roman hier-
archy; so of the member of the
Protestant Alliance; and SO Of the Con-
federate monarchist. The question with
the negro is how t, keep from being crushed
out Of existence between these contending
forces.


Heretofore the Republicans have stood by
the negro. Further on, it will become neces.
sary for US to consider the motives which
have induced this Republican interest in
the negro. 1t is enough for our present
purposes to know that the cause of the Re
publican party from its earliest organiza.
tion down to this day, has been identified
with the cause of the negro, and that the
chief strength of the Republican party is to
the national Democracy has, from time i'm
memorial, been the upholder of slavery, and
Its chief strength has been at the South.
The tactics of the Democracy may be stated
briefly to consist in holding the South well
in hand as a sectit nal unit, willie dividing
the North. The one issue upon which the
Democracy has always succeeded in hold
ing the South thus in hand has bee n a fixed,
settled, unrelenting, outspoken hatred of
the negro. The other issue, kindred to this,





succeeded in dividing the North, is found in
the claim that America is white mans
government.


The most superficial observer will see
from this that be the motives of the Re-
publican party what they may, be the char
acter of it's leaders what it may, that it is
nevertheless the only party in the Cnited
States to which the negro can look for
recognition, sympathy or protection within
the American Union. 1t is simply impossi.
BILE for the national Democratic party ever
to become, under any possible circum-
the friend OF political ally of the
negro. When it gives up it's hate of the
negro, it not only gives up its stock in trade
out it surrenders its party life. When the
Democratic party ceases to hate the negro
1t will cease to be the Democratic party.
In such case the South will cease also to be
a sectional unit. Then the millennium will
have come to wipe the tears from all faces
and bless us as a nation.


Does any man in his right senses expect
such change of spots on the part of the
Depocratic political leopard! Do the mas
sacres in Louisiana and Mississippi indicate
the incoming of this millennium


If there is q colored man at the South so
blind to these facts as to continue to build
his hopes and the hopes of his people upon
Democratic love for the cause of humanity,
then he must be deaf, as well as blind, to
he long series of events which have been
enacted in the broad open day, in every
Southern State of the American Union
within the past ten years. Dellverance
Tor the negro never can come from Demo
cratic rule. If it does not come through
he courage, as we'll as the continued ascen.
lenoy of the Republican party, in national
lffairs, then this deliverance must be sought
,or in some other direction. 1t is this '.al-
iernative," this possibility" in our poll
iics, which should now engage the attention
# the friends OF African civilization.


used the term courage" in the above
for purpose, and that purpose
8 to declare it is the rapidly growing opin.
on of earnest Republicans all over the
North, that Republicanism at the South
means protection, effective protection by
rational Intervention, to the negro in his
lights of citizenship, or that it means
.othing.
If the Republicans carry the country in
he next presidential election, we know
What to expect. We. shall make "bloody"
progress at the South tor four years more,