American Missionary | Page 3

suffrage of the races in the South awakened public attention as it does now. In many quarters, some of them very influential, the right of the Negro to a fair vote and a fair count is strenuously advocated. On the other hand, the supremacy of the whites as the ruling race in the South is set forth by leading Southern men more distinctly than ever before.
WHITE SUPREMACY.
Col. Grady, of Atlanta, in his famous speech at Dallas, Texas, urges this in these emphatic terms:
Standing in the presence of this multitude, sobered with the responsibility of the message I deliver to the young men of the South, I declare that the truth above all others to be worn unsullied and sacred in your hearts, to be surrendered to no force, sold for no price, compromised in no necessity, but cherished and defended as the covenant of your prosperity, and the pledge of peace to your children, is that the white race must dominate forever in the South, because it is the white race, and superior to that race with which its supremacy is threatened.
Hon. W.C.P. Breckinridge, member of Congress from Kentucky, and many other prominent men in the South, express the same sentiment, so that this may be regarded as the ultimatum of Southern popular requirement.
HOW THIS SUPREMACY IS TO BE ATTAINED.
The most obvious way is that which is in use at present, the intimidation of the colored man and the manipulation of the ballot-box. But against this the sober second thought of the South itself begins to revolt. Thus a paper so thoroughly Southern as the Charleston News and Courier utters this salutary and emphatic protest:
"It appals thinking men to know and see that the present generation and the rising generation of white men in the South are taught in practice that republican institutions are a failure, and that elections are to be carried, not by the honest vote of a fair majority, but by campaigning, which begins with rank intimidation and ends with subterfuge and evasion. The white people suffer more by the trickery and malfeasance by which they score victory than the colored people suffer. The supremacy of what, for convenience, is called Anglo-Saxon civilization, though there is little of the Anglo-Saxon manner or of civilization in the mode of securing it, must and will be maintained, but it can be maintained without sectional divisions in politics and without the maintenance of radical lines at elections."
As these old methods are beginning to find little favor with the South itself, a multitude of other schemes are brought to the front.
The _Age-Herald_, of Birmingham, Ala., claims a patent (which it says others are infringing) for the scheme which it thus sets forth:
"The Negroes could be induced to emigrate to a Western Territory, if it were set apart for their especial use without any force being used to compel them to go."
A writer in the Richmond Dispatch proposes that the Negroes in the South be induced to voluntarily emigrate to Brazil, Mexico or other countries where they are wanted, and even the old plan of fifty years ago, to return them to Africa is again brought forward. To this last suggestion, the Yonkers Statesman replies:
The notion that the black can be successfully re-shipped to Africa dies hard; but there are few things plainer than that he has no desire and no purpose to be thus disposed of, but regards this land as being as much his as it is the white man's. It would be hard to dispute his title, grounded as it is in age and effective service. The Negro believes he belongs here, and here he means to remain; and the prospect that his mind can be changed is certainly not very cheering.
The _Times-Democrat_ of New Orleans thinks that the true solution is white immigration, but the Daily Express of San Antonio, Texas, replies: "The principal objection to this scheme is that the Negro will not go till the white immigrants come, and the white immigrants will not come until the Negro goes."
Congressman Oates, of Alabama, advocates the disfranchisement of the Negroes, or rather as a Democrat he suggests that the Republicans do it. He says that as the Republicans gave him the ballot, the South would cheerfully acquiesce if they should take it away from him. But it is not likely that the Republican administration will lead off in such a movement. Indeed, from present appearances, the new President is looking in exactly the opposite direction.
WISER VIEWS.
There are men, however, in the South, wise, conscientious and "to the manner born," who take entirely different views of this great problem. The Hon. J.L.M. Curry, once a General in the Confederate Army, subsequently the efficient Secretary of the Peabody Fund, more recently our Minister in Spain, and now again at his