Emancipation And Emigration Part 3

The "Traveller" has all along maintained, in spite of the protests of the Northern doughfaces who wors.h.i.+p the ex-Confederate chiefs, that the conciliatory profession of Hampton & Co. is a malicious snare, and the fraternal disposition attributed to their followers is a delusion. As the campaign at the South advances, the truth begins to develop, and even the Northern conciliators begin to acknowledge it. The following information comes in the form of a Was.h.i.+ngton despatch to one of the most obedient newspaper servants of the Southern chieftains:--

_Terrorism in South Carolina._

Information from Abbeville District, in South Carolina, is to the effect that Democrats have already begun a system of terrorism to prevent Republicans from organizing for political purposes. Several of the local papers of that section are charging that Republicans of that vicinity have completed a ticket, and that it is already being circulated secretly among colored voters, and upon this curious charge an attempt is being made to stir up white citizens to take this matter in hand, and act in time, and vigorously. In Edgefield District, one of the local newspapers, in commenting upon this reported secret action on the part of the Republicans, says that something is feared in Edgefield County, and upon this urges that two Republicans, who are supposed to be leaders in this movement, should, if they dared to lift their heads or fingers in political machinations, be seized and hung. To use its own words: "Yes, we mean exactly what we say. If those named, and others, ever dare to inaugurate political schemes in Edgefield again, let us hang them.

Not only our own self-respect, but our safety demands it, and that without masks or disguise."

The newspaper quoted is the Edgefield "Advertiser," which contains a long article giving the names of those Republicans against whom it tries to incite the mob. The Abbeville "Medium" joins in the cry against the Republicans, who are exercising their common rights, and advises the Democrats to "throw out pickets" in order to suppress the movement. What all this talk means everybody knows, and the experience of the Southern Republicans shows them what they are to expect if they dare to exercise their privileges as citizens. Extraordinary emphasis is given to this revival of Ku-Kluxism, by the recollection that it is just two years since the horrors of the Hamburg ma.s.sacre were enacted, on the very ground where this movement finds its inspiration, under the patronage of one who now holds a seat in the United States Senate; and that it is more than one year since the State government of South Carolina was surrendered to Hampton with the a.s.surance that everybody's rights would be protected, and that fraternal relations would be maintained as a result of the conciliatory policy. This melancholy failure of all efforts to compromise with the perfidious ex-Confederates, in South Carolina, is only one in a score of lessons, by which the North has blindly failed to profit. The a.s.sa.s.sins, who slaughtered the colored Republicans, at Hamburg, are still at large, and ready for more b.l.o.o.d.y work: and Hampton sits calmly at the head of affairs in his State, deluding the people of the North with promises which he never intends to fulfil. It would seem to be about time for us to recall the language of the Cincinnati platform, declaring it to be "the solemn obligation of the legislative and executive departments of the government" to "secure to every citizen complete liberty and exact equality in the exercise of all civil, political, and public rights." This language was enforced by the imperative demand for "a Congress and a chief executive whose courage and fidelity to these duties shall not falter until these results are placed beyond dispute or recall." It is useless to deny that the signs are ominous in the South. The time seems to have arrived for testing the courage and fidelity of those whom the Republican party called to the duty of protecting the rights of citizens.h.i.+p, and the capability of Republican inst.i.tutions for the plainest purposes and requirements of a government.

The Portland "Advertiser," a disgruntled sheet of Republican antecedents, says President Hayes has effected a "permanent settlement of the Southern question." That depends. He has secured Democratic ascendency in every Southern State. He has wiped out the Republican party of the South. He has rewarded bull-dozers instead of punis.h.i.+ng them for their crimes. He has emasculated the United States flag so that it is no longer the symbol of protection to the newly enfranchised race.

But the one thing which would compensate in some degree for these acts, he has not been able to do; viz., make loyal men of the unreconstructed ex-rebels. These are just as bitter, venomous, and implacable to-day as on the day when Gen. Grant's term of office expired. One man, and one only, so far as we know, has been changed by the "new departure," and that man is now a Cabinet officer. Upon the same terms even the Chisholm a.s.sa.s.sins might be conciliated.--_Concord Monitor_.

The safest thing to do with the Southern claims of all kinds is to reject them promptly. If the entire batch should be ruled out, some deserving persons might suffer, but the country would be saved the cost of enriching a good many scores of rascally rebels. The claims now on file foot up about three hundred millions of dollars, and we venture to say that not half a million of this amount is honestly due to the claimants.--_Philadelphia Bulletin_.

The lynching of the colored man, Walker Denning, in the town of Riverside, Texas, appears to have been an unusually brutal and unjustifiable act, even for Texas. The girl with whom he eloped admitted to the reporter of a Texas paper that she prompted his course, Denning at first strongly objecting and advising her to stay at home. The spectacle of twenty armed men firing buck-shot into a chained and helpless victim at such close range that his clothing was set on fire, horrifies us with its unnecessary savagery. But the revelation is no new one. We have already had proof upon proof that under "conciliation"

there is no law, justice, nor mercy for the unfortunate colored people of the South: and this merely adds another to the long list of butcheries, and worse than Turkish barbarities, of which the blood-thirsty rebel element have been guilty.--_Traveller_.

Henrietta Wood, a colored woman, of Cincinnati, has recovered two thousand five hundred dollars damages against ex-Sheriff Ward, of Campbell County, Kentucky, for unlawful duress and abduction. In 1853, when living in Cincinnati, she was enticed over the river to Kentucky, and delivered over to Ward, who kept her as a slave seven months, when he disposed of her to a slave-trader. She was sold South, and remained fifteen years in slavery. She returned to Cincinnati after the close of the war, and commenced the action which has just terminated in her favor.

The "Macon (Ga.) Telegraph" demands that the Southern people shall be paid for their emanc.i.p.ated slaves. Next they will probably want pay, at hotel rates, for the entertainment of Union prisoners during the war.--_Philadelphia Press_.

The colored Republicans in Somerville County, South Carolina, carried the local election recently by a large majority, but the Democrats managed to count them out, on the ground that it wouldn't do for the Republicans to carry the first election of the season.--_Journal_.

And this right under the much-praised administrative system of Wade Hampton, who, with Gordon, Lamar, Stephens, Hill, and the rest of the treasonable species, const.i.tutes the organic beau-ideal of statesmans.h.i.+p. Turn the other cheek and let them slap it, Mr. Journal.

A SAD, TRUE STORY.--A letter from New Orleans to the "Philadelphia Press" thus refers to the native Republicans of Louisiana:--

"The leaders were beset with dangers and difficulties such as have never even been dreamed of in the North. One by one they have given their life's blood in the cause. They have lain down their lives, true to the flag. They have been thinned out by a.s.sa.s.sination and violence. Their graves--the graves of the victims of Democratic outrage--are scattered throughout the South. There are comparatively few of the living to tell the tale. A large proportion of these, even, have been maimed and crippled in the fight.

"They are to-day, as a rule, none the less true to the Republican faith.

The Southern Republican leaders have nothing to offer by way of palliation or excuse. They have fallen one by one in the enemy's front.

The Republican ma.s.ses have been ma.s.sacred by wholesale; have been murdered and outraged upon every occasion and in every manner. They have been hunted as the beasts of the jungle. Their blood cries to Heaven from every hillside, from every by-way, and from every bridle-path in the South. There has been more of blood--_Republican blood_--that has dyed the soil of Louisiana alone than all that has been shed in all of the Indian wars of a quarter of a century. It has been shed, alas, in vain. _The American people were not a nation. There was not, there is not to-day, to their shame be it said, the power within the American people, to protect the life, or avenge the murder of an American citizen, within the American lines_."

We would crucify our extreme modesty and suggest to the above writer the reason why "there is not to-day the power within the American people to protect the life or avenge the murder of an American citizen." Is it not because we, "the people," put their political power into the hands of the commander-in-chief of our army, in trust for four years, who betrayed that trust by the transfer of that power into the hands of a contemptible knot of armed and defiant rebels, thus const.i.tuting a solid South with which to rule the nation? And is it not because the said commander-in-chief, at the demand of the said rebels in arms, packed up his traps and withdrew our "federal bayonets" from the South, thus giving them, in addition to _their_ State rule, _our_ national supremacy, by further giving them two States with large Republican majorities?

And furthermore, is it not because the loyal North did not arise as one man and demand the impeachment of the traitor who bartered their liberties for a _sham_ peace, taking rebel promises for pay which have since been repudiated?

But the men who a.s.sisted the President in this nefarious business are coming to their senses. In a speech a few days ago, at Toledo, O., the Hon. Charles Foster, M. C. from Ohio, and a member of the political firm of Matthews, Foster & Co., renounces the Southern policy of the administration, which that firm helped to inaugurate, as follows:--

"I believed in and supported President Hayes in the policy of refusing the use of force to sustain State governments. I believed in it as a matter of principle, though his course can be sustained on the ground of necessity. I had hoped that his policy of kindness and conciliation would result in the formation of a public sentiment South that would permit Republicans to exercise fully all of the political rights guaranteed to them by the Const.i.tution and the amendments thereto.

Knowing that there are a large number of the people South who are tired of the Bourbon Democracy, I hoped that the President's course would permit them the more easily to a.s.sert themselves in some form in opposition to the Democracy. I see signs of a realization of this hope, especially in the States of Tennessee, North Carolina, and Texas, but in less permanent form than I had hoped. The President's policy has lost him the sympathy of the great ma.s.s of his party. That he has conscientiously done his duty as he saw it, there can be no question. No matter whether the conventions indorse him or not, no man will rejoice more than he over Republican success--North and South. While he was beslavered with praise from the Southern Democracy, they seemed to be laying broad and deep the foundations for a solid South. Upon the attempt, through the Potter resolutions, to unseat the President, they, with bare two exceptions, voted for it. They declined even to give an opportunity to vote upon the Hale amendment, which would have permitted an investigation into Democratic frauds. Jeff Davis makes as treasonable speeches as those of 1861, and he receives the indors.e.m.e.nt and approval of a large proportion of the press and people. Out of one hundred newspapers in Mississippi, ninety-five indorse and applaud Jeff Davis.

Mr. Singleton, of the same State, on the floor of the House of Representatives, declared 'his highest allegiance to be due to his State, both in peace and in war.'

"By the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment, the political power of the South in the Electoral College and the House of Representatives, was increased about forty per cent. The Republican party to-day can poll, if permitted to do so, forty per cent. of the vote of the South. Yet, in the coming elections, I do not believe that we can carry one in five of the districts that we know to be reliably Republican. By force and fraud the political power of forty per cent. of their people is exercised solely by the sixty per cent., thus making a solid Democratic South. The right of the citizens of the several States to enjoy the privileges and immunities of all the States is not respected in many localities. It is said, condescendingly, that a Republican can live in the South without trouble, if he will keep a padlock on his mouth.

"Now, my fellow-citizens, there can be no lasting peace until the amendments to the Const.i.tution are executed in good faith, both in letter and spirit. A solid South is a constant menace to the peace of the country. It means that the Const.i.tutional amendments shall be abrogated and repealed in spirit; it means the usurpation by the majority of all the political power of one section of the country, and with a fragment of the other section it enables the solid South, inspired as it is by the spirit and the men who sought the overthrow of the country, to now rule and control it; and yet they may be in a large minority in the whole country. Such success, if it is submitted to, means the payment of the rebel claims, the pensioning of rebel soldiers, the payment for slaves lost in rebellion. I feel it my especial duty to say that as long as the menace of the solid South threatens the peace of the country, it is the duty of the North to be united against it. I am desirous as any man can be that we shall get away from sectional politics, but I cannot close my eyes to the danger of a solid South. The advice I give is simply that ordinary prudence and care be exercised. I repeat, that so long as the menace of a solid South exists, it is the duty of the North to continue to meet it with 'the most Greeks.'"

The New Orleans "Times" says: "While the North, with a lavish hand, is soothing the fevered brow of the Southern suffering, she is building a monument of grat.i.tude which will be luminous forever." And the only thing the North will ask in return for what it cheerfully gives is that the monument shall bear the inscription, "Justice to all men."

Senator Chaffee, of Colorado, who is now at Saratoga, was asked if he expected an early revival of business, and in response said: "Yes; a beginning of a revival, because the excessively hard times and real hunger have driven the lazy to work. I was at Hot Springs, Ark., not long ago, and saw thousands of people going through to Texas. As many as twelve hundred emigrants would go through Arkansas in a day. I talked to many of them, and they told me that they had not generally twenty-five dollars ahead of the railroad fare, but said that they desired to get a piece of ground, raise potatoes, or anything, and be independent. That is what will bring us up, and nothing else, every idle person to do something at production.

RECENT BULL-DOZING IN LOUISIANA.

The Pointe Coupee, La., "Record," a Democratic paper, on the 17th inst., said:--

"It is rumored that several men from Bayou Fordoche came to the court house this morning to make affidavits against certain parties from that section of the parish. The complaint is shooting and whipping."

Commenting on this, the New Orleans "Observer" of the 24th said:--

"From sources absolutely reliable, affecting affairs in Pointe Coupee parish, we learn that since the hanging of four black men in the Racourcee settlement by the bull-dozers of that section, the colored people thereabouts have sought to leave the locality, going to Fordoche, a bayou neighborhood where is a large colored settlement of small farmers.

"Determined to stop this migration of colored people, and at the same time terrorize the Fordoche farmers, on the night of the 14th inst., Wednesday, a crowd of bull-dozers, some sixty odd men from Racourcee, came to this colored settlement, and for no known cause, save that which we have expressed, outraged several inoffensive and hard-working colored people. Lucy Allain, a colored woman, was stripped and whipped unmercifully, and the same treatment was given William Abraham. Levi Sherman was shot three times. All three of these victims are now confined, by reason of this outrage, to their beds. Others of the colored people would have received like treatment, but they got out of the way. A prisoner in the jail there was hung for sport. Fortunately, he was cut down in time to save his life. Some colored people were outraged, and atrocities and indignities practised generally befitting the lawless character of the Democratic party-workers and bull-dozers.

The good citizens (white) of the locality have called a ma.s.s meeting to express their indignation and to attempt to redress these wrongs, or at least put a stop to further outrages. The meeting was to have had place on Wednesday, the 21st inst. A similar meeting was also called for the same day at New Roads. The information furnished us of these horrible crimes is from purely Democratic sources, gentlemen and decent citizens who abhor the partisan atrocities of their party-workers. So far as we can learn, Republicans of Pointe Coupee are so terrorized that even prominent gentlemen there will say nothing of this act of atrocity, the information in fact reaching this city and our office from responsible Democratic citizens. We are informed that the plantation visited was one of the New York Warehouse and Security Company's places, and of which Mr. Bradish Johnson is the agent.

The Macon, Ga., "Telegraph" is only a little in advance of the ex-Confederate "conservatives" when it demands the repeal of the fourteenth amendment, that the Southern people may extort payment for their liberated slaves. That will soon be one of the regular planks in the Southern Democratic platform.

In Jasper County, Georgia, since the war (reports a local paper), there have been sixty-nine men killed, and not a single hanging.

The Augusta (Ga.) "Chronicle" suggests that the proper place for Congressman Rainey (the man whose sobriety enabled Congress to adjourn on the day appointed) is the chain-gang. Perhaps his consignment to a slave-gang would suit the "Chronicle" better.

The Democrats claim that white and colored school children have equal school privileges in Georgia, but this is far from being true. In Atlanta, there are fine houses for the white scholars; the colored scholars are sent to cellars and other unfit places, and are limited in accommodation at that.

The Charleston "News and Courier" is Wade Hampton's organ, and it is leading his campaign in South Carolina. Alarmed because the Republicans threatened to exercise their right to talk politics and vote, the organ says: "Seceders and malcontents will be treated as public enemies, and made political outcasts. The Democratic party will not lay down the sceptre of authority in South Carolina, nor shall the sceptre be wrested from the strong hands by which it is grasped." That is, Wade Hampton says, in substance, "I am for conciliating those who vote for me, but death to all who oppose!" Truly, as Gov. Boutwell said in his Maine speech, the Southern question is given the greater importance in this campaign by the action of the ex-rebels.

In North Carolina, the Republican leaders are trying to induce the negroes to vote by telling them that the coming election will be a fair and free one. The deception is not justifiable, and will cost the men who resort to it the confidence of the colored voters.

The vote for the Democratic State ticket last week was about eighty thousand. There was no opposition. The legislature will be almost entirely Democratic.--_Despatch from Alabama_.

And where, pray, is that new Independent party; where are the old Whigs, the administration Democrats, not to say anything about the resuscitated Republicans, who were to arise from the policy of conciliation? Alabama is pretty solid.

To deprive man of the fruit of his labors is to cut the sinews of industry. Who will care to labor if another is to appropriate the results of his toil? He is deprived of an inalienable right, the enjoyment of which alone can induce him to exercise the self-denial implied in labor and economy. To distribute the products of his industry to the community, as some social theorists would teach us, is to destroy individual enterprise, and to reduce society to a great almshouse.--_Zion's Herald_.

[Despatch to the Traveller.]

FREEDOM OF SPEECH NOT TOLERATED IN SOUTH CAROLINA.

"New York, Oct. 15.--A Was.h.i.+ngton despatch says that Congressmen Smalls and Rainey have been obliged to flee from South Carolina on account of their activity in organizing Republican meetings, and they were yesterday promised protection by the President."

Protection where? in Was.h.i.+ngton or South Carolina? It cannot be in the latter, for the President has put his "Federal bayonets" into the hands of Gov. (?) Hampton, and voluntarily shut himself out of that State.

Nay, more, he has driven the bolts through his military power as commander-in-chief of the nation, and the last Congress screwed on the nut, which leaves the President powerless, and the Governor all-powerful. Let us see how he is using that power. The Democratic paper of Sumter County, edited by one of the aids of Wade Hampton, calls upon the Democrats to turn out and break up the Republican meetings in such appeals as the following:--

"Men with mothers and wives; men with sisters dear; men who expect to raise families in Sumter County,--let your sons and daughters turn out on Sat.u.r.day and meet the thieves whom Sam Lee is gathering together and attempting to fasten on us as our rulers and masters in this county. Let everything be conducted on Sat.u.r.day with military order, promptness, and decision. In 1861 our Southern braves left their homes and firesides and encountered every conceivable bodily privation, every danger, for a cause that dwarfs into perfect insignificance in comparison with the Democratic cause in this county to-day, and yet are there men who are so ease-loving and unpatriotic that they will not turn out on Sat.u.r.day to meet the Republican thieves? If such there be, go mark them well.

"Let Northern speakers come; we intend to carry Sumter County Democratic, at the next election, in spite of the world, flesh, and the devil.

"Democrats should rally as one, on Sat.u.r.day. He who dallies is dastard.

He who doubts is d.a.m.ned.