Chapter XLII

General Sherman’s army was marching through Georgia.

At daybreak the pillar of cloud went before him, and at night great bonfires of burning homes lit up their rearward. The strong fled at their approach, and the weak trembled and prayed.

There was a day when the foragers of the victorious veterans reached the home of an old couple who lived with their few slaves in the path of the devourer. They had but returned from the burial of a little baby boy, a colored baby whose mother was the faithful old cook, Mary Ann, and whose father was a brother of the _Chronicle’s_ Joe in Charleston. They were standing under the vine-colored doorway looking at a dense smoke rising in the direction of a neighbor’s, when a squad of soldiers in blue came up.

“Old woman, we are hungry. Got anything to eat?”

The best the white-haired grandmother had was set before them, and when it was gone—more. At last one of them said:

“Madam, you had best hide everything you have, or by this time to-morrow you will have nothing.”

“Shet up, ol’ Secesh!” said another.

When the men had gone, they dug little holes and hid their few treasures; a dozen knives and forks and as many spoons, and the old man took his watch and put it far up the chimney. By the time it was done, blue-coated soldiers were swarming all over the premises.

“Old man, come out here!”

When he followed some men into the bushes, they made merry with the grandmother.

“Old woman, where is your silver?”

Silence.

“Where is the silver?”

By this time the smoke-house was on fire and a half dozen bales of cotton were burning. The negro slaves gathered in terror.

Soon the white-haired man came back, his face purple, his eyes bloodshot, his step tremulous.

“Give me my watch, Mary.”

“Why, Henry, it is not theirs!”

“Give it. They have choked me nearly to death.”

The old man staggered to his chair. They had taken him to the swamp, and bending a small sapling over the road, stretched a rope upon it and said:

“Now, old man, tell where you keep your gold.”

“I have no gold, gentlemen.”

“Don’t lie to us. We’ve heard all that before. You might as well tell us first as last. See that rope, you know what it means.”

“I have told you the truth.” The old man was thin and aged.

“Swing him up, boys.”

He dangled from the end of the rope, and then they let him fall.

“Now, where is the gold?”

He did not understand at first, then he said feebly:

“The gold—oh, yes, the gold—. I am sorry, gentlemen, but I have no gold.”

“Swing him up again.”

The jerk on his neck well-nigh broke it, and the suffocation was almost too much.

“Will you remember now where it is?”

“The gold—oh, yes, gentlemen,” dazedly, “I’m sorry, but I have no gold.”.

“Swing the damned rebel once more.”

It was really useless, for he was insensible, and when he fell he looked like a dead man. His withered old hand and his thin gray hair and his weak aged heart could not stand much. He was totally unconscious.

“We nearly went too far that time, boys.”

When he came to, they were bathing his face in the brook.

“Oh, yes,” he said, involuntarily, “the gold. It is as I have said—only the watch I told you of at first. I am an old man now and have no use for gold.”

So they brought him back to the house.

“Old woman, fork out that watch.”

“I will not do it.”

“You will!”

They were coming towards her when the one whom they had called “old Secesh,” entered, and they stopped.

“Men, for shame! For shame! Don’t dare touch that old woman! The first man who touches these old people will be shot,” he continued, raising his gun, and they went sullenly out into the yard.

And when they had gone, they had taken all—the sweet potatoes in the hills, the corn, bacon, flour, the cows, cooking utensils, anything any one wanted. And “old Secesh” stayed by the aged woman’s side.

“It is a shame,” he said, apologetically. “If only Grant were our commander! This isn’t the way he and Lee fight.”

At intervals other soldiers came, and finding all taken, passed on. To one she looked up reproachfully, and said, as she listened to the groans of the negroes about their burning cabins.

“And yet you say you are the friends of our negroes?”

“We came to save the Union. Damn the niggers,” was the reply she received; and then the man continued:

“You think Georgy is havin’ a bad time of it, old woman—jes’ wait till we git to Ca’liny, we’ll grease her over and burn her up. That’s where treason begun, an’, by God, that’s where it shall end!”

“Yes, and old Columbia’ll be red, white and blue when we’re done,” chimed in another.

At sunset the aged woman went out into the empty yards and an old negro mammy was sitting on her porch, her body swaying backward and forward, as is the custom of the race when in the deepest misery. Occasionally a low moan and the ringing of hands in silent sorrow. Then seeing her mistress approaching, she cried out:

“Mistis, what kind of folks is dese here Yankees? Dey won’ eben let de daid rest in de grabe.”

“Why, Mary Ann, what is it?”

“You know my little John, what was buried yistiddy? Ain’t dey done tuk him up and lef’ him on de top o’ de groun’ fer de hogs to root?”

The soldiers had seen the fresh earth, and they mistook the new-made grave for hidden treasures, and “a little dead nigger was not worth reburying.”

So the black mother rocked and moaned in horror and agony.

And that night by the campfires not far away, a man was warming his hands and saying:

“Dees tarn rebels down here tink dey haf a hard time in Georgy—jus’ wait till we strike South Ca’liny oncet. We’ll burn ’em up all to oncet already.”

“Have you heard what Sherman says, Dutchy?” a soldier asked.

“_I_ know what Cheneral Sherman haf say, and I will carry it oud entirely. Ve vill burn up that Columbia ven de tree rockets goes up oncet. Ve vill gif dem hell already, dey hadn’t ought ter lef’ de glorious union,” and he laughed knowingly.

“General Sherman didn’t say that.”

“Ach, mein Gott, don’t I know vat Cheneral Sherman say and tink? Ach, he ain’t say nothings, aber he think a blicky full. You jus’ vait till we burn dat Columbia, and Cheneral Sherman vill be dere and von’t say one word, py tam!”

THE RACE PROBLEM

By James H. Branch

The present race problem is cognate to the African slavery problem, which preceded it in point of time. Slavery was a grievous fault, and grievously hath the South answered it. Morally, the whole country is responsible for its introduction.

The slave trade, the most degrading and offensive branch of slavery, was carried on by New England, they being a maritime people, and the South, an agricultural section then, bought the negroes as laborers. Then came the day when it was to shake the foundation stones of the republic. It was agitated in pulpit and hall; in song and in story. The art of the novelist, the moving strains of sacred song, and the dagger of the assassin, were alike employed to arouse interest and zeal in the fate of the poor, downtrodden negro.

These were the abolitionists whose chief seat was Boston, whose place of rendezvous was Faneuil Hall, a place made historic by great speeches and great meetings there in the early days, by the lovers of free institutions. Plymouth pulpit added its voice, and the days of slavery were then numbered; but the country was to be baptized with fire, and with blood, if nothing better. These people were fanatics, and fanaticism has been defined as “_a popular movement acting without reason or judgment_, always, however, founded upon some religious or _philanthropic idea or sentiment_, to give _it character and volume_.”

This bird of dark plumage and portentous croak, winged its way from Exeter Hall, London, the parent body of the American society meeting there. Results will forever mark an object lesson for true patriots, and practical statesmen and sound a note of warning against incorporating altruistic, philanthropic fads, and the various cults growing out of idealism into party platforms and making use of such explosive material to gain political advantage.

Slavery was abolished in the English colonies and elsewhere peacefully, as would have ultimately happened here; and though it may have been delayed a half century, nay, even a century, the net moral gain would have been far greater.

England had slavery also, and the Exeter Hall people, like those of Faneuil Hall, were fanatics. They exalted the negro and ascribed to him attributes, qualities and possibilities equal to those of the white race, and hated his owners and the constitution, government and laws of this republic as founded by the fathers. To-day many of the triflers with the stern facts of anthropological and ethnological science, who distort the truths of history while laboring under the magic spell of this fanaticism, confound all dark, dusky or colored peoples with the true negro of Africa. They have credited the ancient civilization of Egypt to the negro race, when many school boys know that the Egyptians, the founders of Thebes, of Memphis, the builders of the pyramids, and the carvers of the Sphinx, were _Coptics_, not negroes. Neither Pharaoh, Ptolemy nor Cleopatra, the fair sorceress of the Nile, were negroes, though natives of Africa.

When the Constitution of the United States was framed many of the delegates to the convention traveled by private conveyance; and as slavery existed both at the North and South, many of them brought negro drivers or servants to the meeting place. Slavery was even then fully established, recognized and protected by a clause inserted in the Constitution as follows: “No person held to service or labor in one State under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered upon claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due.”

This provision was adopted by the convention without opposition, and this solemn instrument, creating a government among men, which was to become at once the wonder and admiration of the statesmen of the world, bore the signatures of Washington, Franklin, Hamilton and Madison, but Senator Sumner, the leading spirit of rabid fanaticism, in the Senate of the United States, said that it was “a covenant with hell;” and advised resistance, by force if necessary. Many Northern states enacted “personal liberty laws” prohibiting the return of fugitive slaves to their owners.

The Republican party was formed upon this new-born craze, and incorporated these new and strange doctrines into its platform at Chicago, in June, 1860; and in five months the movement culminated in the election of Mr. Lincoln to the presidency.

If there is one thing more than another sedulously taught to Southern youth as a political creed it was that our government was based upon a _written_ constitution which should be obeyed, upheld and respected; to do otherwise was treasonable. The South then viewed the situation with horror and alarm.

Nat Turner, a negro preacher in North Carolina, had, some years before, fomented a servile insurrection and in the night time the negroes rose and murdered many white families.

John Brown, a white fanatic from the West, had gone down to Virginia and incited servile insurrection; and having armed men, made war against Virginia. He was taken, and after trial for treason, was legally executed. When his remains crossed the Potomac river, going North, his casket was covered with flowers, thus testifying that his aborted efforts in Virginia had many sympathizers. A servile insurrection thenceforth became a possibility to be thought of. A servile insurrection meant efforts at midnight assassination. The South is now, as then, desirous of preserving good order, peace and quiet, between the two races, and the people of other sections do not realize the situation.

These facts are of interest now only in throwing light upon the view point of the South, when a new political party triumphed, the leading principle of which was interference with slavery. Aside from pecuniary considerations as to the value of the slaves, the effect upon the slaves themselves of these agitations was a matter of the deepest concern and the South sought safety and repose in withdrawing from the Union as a last resort. Its people were divided on the subject and the ordinances of secession passed by narrow majorities, thus showing that under normal conditions, the South was strongly attached to the Union.

It is painful to utter views not in accordance with a well founded hope for the final uplifting of all men, but naught shall be set down in malice or ill-will to an inferior and weaker race. The white man of the South has a duty and a burden; and if he has, as has been often charged, suppressed negro votes and elected legislatures, he has, at the same time, in ten Southern states, impoverished and ruined by war, appropriated for negro schools over _one hundred millions of dollars_. While the South has encouraged the negro in industrial, educational, and moral training, and produced some fine specimens of the negro race, still there are millions who are just as they were, and many good observers see evidences of retrogression in the generation since emancipation.

No prophetic vision can see, no intellect can foretell, what the final result will be. All sorts of speculations have been indulged, extinction by absorption, by a gradual dispersion over the states, or, remaining in the South, a co-equal parallel development of the two races.

A race problem of course implies race antagonisms, and the chief factor in bringing about race antagonism is not in the bare fact that the negro vote is Republican, but in the fact that the race, _vote as a race_, solidly, _en masse_, and _naturally_, in view of the manner of its emancipation. It is not that white men see in mere party allegiance a menace to good order, or are intolerant of Republican politics, especially the _national_ and _economic_ politics of the party, for many are at heart protectionists; but it is the perpetual _solidarity_ of the vote of the negro race, voting as a race that sharply accentuates race attrition. Much has been spoken and written about the _solidarity_ of the Southern states in voting, and little notice taken of the _cause_, which is the _solidarity_ of the negro vote. Thus one _solidarity_ begets another _solidarity_, and the South has not been in a normal condition, politically, since emancipation.

Is there not a problem in this?

It is submitted to all fair minded men whether it is not true—that if any race whatever vote solidly and habitually, as a race, be they German, Irish, Jew, Negro or Chinese, that it would inevitably produce race antagonism, in any state in the union. The South had at the close of the Civil War, its share of the Whig party, who on account of _negro solidarity_ were driven into _white solidarity_—the Democratic party, and they and their descendants have remained solidly there, voting solidly against the solid negro vote. In many parts of the South the negroes outnumber the whites, and could elect, if their solid vote was counted as cast, judges, clerks and sheriffs, and in at least three states, state officials, a state of affairs as much to be desired as a Chinaman mayor of San Francisco, or governor of California. The negro vote has been in some way neutralized, or he has not voted the full numerical strength of the race, else such results must have followed.

The fact is, the negro has been practically disfranchised for thirty-five years, and the South has grown tired of dishonesty in elections. Thus, by restricting suffrage, the _causa causans_ is removed.

Under these constitutions a new star of hope for civic virtue and fair elections has just arisen upon the Southern horizon. Throughout this long midnight of political darkness hope has been cherished of a brighter day. The political wanton, or fanatic, only, could seek to disturb, or obstruct it. The best element of the citizens of Alabama are not unlike, and are morally and intellectually the equals of citizens of other states, and they may be trusted to do equal justice to both races. With the right to vote restricted, and the removal of the fear of negro majorities, white men can afford to divide and sternly call each other to account at the ballot box. Two parties are essential in the American political system, and the best results cannot be obtained without them. When these new constitutions shall be acquiesced in, or judicially tested and sustained, _solidarity_ in the South will disappear; and the republic will rest upon surer foundations. The constitutional guarantees of life, liberty, property, the pursuit of happiness, with the facilities afforded him for education, moral and industrial training, are of far more value to the negro than the political right to vote; which in the present stage of his progress has served only to make friction between the races. After a time it may be the part of wisdom to remove present restrictions, and time alone can point the way.

Intelligent and patriotic negroes will not fail to discern, that when vast masses of the race no longer vote solidly against their white neighbors, Southern white men will be more and more disposed to enforce, in his favor, the rights enumerated. In other words, the race is restricted in a purely political function, but it is enlarged in every other direction by that very restriction.

It may require the passing of several generations of negroes to determine their real capabilities under the uplifting influence of American institutions, for they have failed sadly in other emancipation countries. There were 6,000,000 Africans held as slaves on this continent, at the beginning of the century just closed. Only 883,602 of this number, were held in the United States; about 2,000,000 by Spain on the continent and West Indian Islands, about 900,000 by England on the continent and in the West Indies. The remainder were held by the Portuguese, Dutch, Danes and Norwegians in their various colonies. Their descendants have all been emancipated, some for a hundred years, some for only a few years, and they furnish fields for observing the experiments made with the negro as a part and parcel of the social, political, and economic affairs of those countries.

Emancipation occurred in Hayti in 1792, as an incident of the French Revolution, and the negroes rose and exterminated every man, woman and child of the white race in the island, with atrocious and revolting details unrecorded. They then set up a republic, a military despotism it was, and such it has remained. Splendid sugar and coffee plantations left untilled, grew up in wild growths, the rich resources of the island were consumed. For a brief space the orderly habits of the white race flickered, and then went out in darkness, eclipsed by a saturnalia of idleness and crime. Negro nature, left to itself, relapsed into barbarism.

“But,” says Froude, the most distinguished modern English historian, “behind the immorality, behind the religiosity, there lies active and live, the horrible revival of the West African superstition; the serpent worship, the child sacrifice, and the cannibalism. There is no room to doubt it.” A missionary assured me that an instance of it occurred only a year ago, within his personal knowledge. The facts are notorious. A full account was published in one of the local newspapers, and the only result was that the president imprisoned the editor for exposing his country.[11]

Bishop Kingsley, who visited the island in 1871, says: “The chief center of this detestable system (Obeahism or Vaudoux worship) is St. Vincent, where, so I am told by one who knows that island well, some sort of secret college or school of the diabolic prophets exists.... In Jamaica I was assured by a non-conformist missionary, who had long lived there, Obeah is by no means on the decrease, and in Hayti it is probably on the increase, and taking, at least until the fall and death of Salnave, shapes which when made public in the civilized world will excite more than mere disgust. But of Hayti I shall be silent, having heard more of the state of society in that unhappy place than it is prudent, for the sake of the few white residents, to tell at present.”[12]

Again he says: “The same missionary told me that in Sierra Leone also, Obeah and poisoning go hand in hand.” Ibid. p. 345.

Sir Spencer St. John, for twelve years the British Minister to Hayti, later Minister to Mexico, in a work entitled “Hayti, the Black Republic,” pp. 196-204, gives at length the horrible details of these practices, as brought out in a legal trial by the evidence, to which trial he was an eye witness. Several persons were charged with, and convicted of, cannibalism. A child being the victim, was first offered as a sacrifice, to propitiate the serpent. “In treating of the black,” says Sir Spencer, “and the mulatto, as they appeared to me during my residence among them, I fear that I shall be considered by some to judge harshly. Such, however, is not my intention. Brought up under Sir James Brook, whose enlarged sympathies could endure no prejudice of race or color, I do not remember ever to have felt any repugnance to my fellow creatures on account of difference of complexion. I have dwelt about thirty-five years among colored people of various races, and am sensible of no prejudice against them” (pp. 8 and 9). “All who know me know that I had no prejudice of color, and if I place the Haytian in general in an unenviable light, it is from a strong conviction that it is necessary to describe the people as they are, and not as one would wish them to be. The most difficult chapter to write was that on Vaudoux worship and cannibalism. I have endeavored to paint it in the least sombre colors, and none who know the country will think that I have exaggerated; in fact, had I listened to the testimony of many experienced residents I should have described rites at which dozens of human victims were sacrificed at a time. Everything I have related has been founded on evidence collected in Hayti, from Haytian official documents, from trustworthy officers of the Haytian government, my foreign colleagues, and from respectable residents, principally, however, from Haytian sources.”

Sir Spencer St. John is an Englishman, a gentleman, and in no way concerned with the race problem under discussion. His testimony should stimulate honest inquiry among conservative thinkers, and should sober fanaticism. While the negro of the Southern states has not fallen to the level of the Haytian, there is abundant proof in the history of every country where emancipation has taken place, that the negro race in every instance, when left to guide itself, and the prop of the white man’s rule withdrawn, has retrograded—reverted to the original type.

Retrogression, decay, vice and Voodoism are the same in Jamaica as in Hayti, modified now for the better, since it has been changed from a responsible colony, as classified in the British Colonial system, to a crown colony, and the elective franchise withdrawn from the negroes. The crown colonies are governed directly by the home government.

Emancipation began there in 1838 and was accomplished through the agitations of Exeter Hall. Jamaica is one of the most fertile spots on the earth’s surface; and tilled under the direction of Englishmen, it was a garden spot, producing vast quantities of coffee and sugar, yielding a large revenue to the government. Indolence followed emancipation, and the once beautiful plantations became waste places. Poverty and want prevailed, revenues failed, and the parliament appointed committees to investigate. The evidence taken showed that the negroes had quit work, the plantations had grown up in bush, and they had squatted in the forests and along the streams. The Exeter Hall Society made many excuses and explanations, and all failing to account for the negro’s degeneracy, they finally urged that he be given the right to vote, in order to encourage him; and under the tireless exertions of these fanatics, parliament enacted a universal suffrage law, with a proviso that the voter should own some real estate, but without specifying the amount. The land had been abandoned and had little value, and the Exeter Hall Society bought a tract of about 1,200 acres, and gave it in small parcels to the negroes until 50,000 of them were qualified to vote under the law, which was not passed anticipating such a result.

The negroes then had a majority over the whites, and speedily took charge of the government of the island, and nearly all white men left their property and the country. “That Jamaica,” says a British official, “was a land of wealth, rivaling the East in its means of riches—nay, excelling it as a market for capital, as a place in which money might be turned; and that it now is a spot on the earth almost more poverty stricken than any other, so much is known to almost all men.”

The little island of Barbadoes contained 160,000 negroes and about 300 white men, and as there was no waste land for the negroes to squat upon, and the white men took care that they obtained no land so as to qualify, that island has remained a highly cultivated, prosperous and happy country. These last named islands furnish striking contrasts, and the islands of Jamaica and Hayti are irrefragable proofs that unrestricted negro suffrage and negro government bring desolation and ruin to both races; and there is no instance to the contrary in all of the emancipation colonies, including the Hispano-American colonies.

San Domingo, once a Spanish colony, and in which emancipation had taken place, is naturally the most fertile of these islands, and was abandoned by Spain. During General Grant’s term of office, a commission was sent there to examine this island and its resources, with a view of appropriating it, and establishing a negro state, by emigration from the United States. Senator Sumner, the leading exponent of abolition, defeated its ratification in the Senate, well knowing the negro’s incapacity for self-government.

Out of the vast mass of evidence the limits of this paper will not permit more than a few opinions additional, from travelers and men of science, in each instance wholly disinterested in American politics, being natives and residents of other countries.

David Page, of Edinburgh, F. N. S. & C., says: “However much mistaken philanthropy may argue to the contrary, there can be but little doubt that the Ethiopian, or black man of Africa, is inferior both to Mongol and Malay, and still more to the Caucasian. He has had possession of the African Continent with all its variety of situation, climate and produce, from time immemorial, and yet has no arts save the rudest, no literature, no science, no temples, no ships, no cities, no moral code; in most instances no idea even of a Supreme Being; nothing in fine, that removes him beyond the desires and necessities of animal existence.[13]”

Professor Page then quotes the English traveler, Sir Samuel Baker, and says: “Notwithstanding all this and a thousand times more (he refers to the Andamaner and the native of Australia) there are some who still argue about the equality of the human race, and talk high sounding generalizations regarding the unity and brotherhood of men. As well might they contend for equality of brothers of the same family, or equal capacity among the men and families of a nation. As in the physical world there are suns, systems, and satellites, so in the vital and intellectual, there are higher and lower, races born to command and lead, and others as certainly destined to obey and follow.

“It is not because one race has risen under favorable circumstances, and another retrograded or remained stationary under conditions of an adverse nature, but because of aboriginal differences and capabilities, which no circumstances can efface nor appliances counteract.

“Brotherhood there may be and ought to be, as far as the inherent instincts of race toward race will permit; and these instincts are not to be disregarded with impunity; but as to unity, if by unity is meant oneness of power and tendency, it is an assertion that all history and present experience must deny. It is a mere phrase that may please the unthinking ear, but it is not a fact that can satisfy the reason.[14]”

Captain Richard Burton, geographer, explorer, ethnical psychologist, a shrewd and sagacious observer, says: “The study of psychology in Eastern Africa is the study of man’s rudimental mind; when subject to the agency of material nature, he neither progresses nor retrogrades.

“He would appear rather a degeneracy from the civilized man than a savage rising to the first step, were it not for his apparent incapacity for improvement. He has not the ring of the true metal. There is no rich nature as in the New Zealander for education to cultivate. He seems to belong to one of those childish races, which, never rising to man’s estate, fall like worn out links from the great chain of animated nature. He unites the incapacity of infancy with the unpliancy of age. For centuries he has been in direct intercourse with the most advanced people of the Eastern Coast (Arabs), still he has stopped short at the threshold of progress; he shows no sign of development; no higher or varied orders of intellect are called into being.[15]”

“I have,” says Du Chaillu, “been struck with the steady decrease of the population even during the short time I have been in Africa, on the coast and in the interior, but before I account for it, let me raise my voice in defense of the white man who has been accused of being the cause of it. Wherever he settles, the aborigines are said to disappear. I admit that such is the case; but the decrease of the population had already taken place before the white man came; the white man noticed, but could not stop it. The decrease of African population is due to several causes—witchcraft taking away more lives than ever the slave trade did.

“I have found no vestige whatever of ancient civilization. Other travelers in different parts of Africa have not been more successful—I think everything tends to show, that the negro is of great antiquity, and has always remained stationary. As to his future capabilities I think extreme views have prevailed. Some think that the negro will never rise higher than he is; others think he is capable of reaching the highest state of civilization. I do not agree with either of these opinions. I believe that the negro may become a more useful member of mankind than he is at present, that he may be raised to a higher standard, but if left to himself he will soon fall back into barbarism, for we have no example to the contrary.

“The efforts of missionaries for hundreds of years have had no effect. The missionary goes away and the people relapse into barbarism. That he (the African) will disappear in time from the land I have but little doubt; and that he will follow in the course of time the inferior races who have preceded him. So let us write his history.”[16]

The foregoing is from the pen of a man of science, an eminent naturalist, and is worthy of the thoughtful consideration of all persons to whom evidence has meaning.

That the present condition of the negro in the Southern states is superior to the African in his native lair, or his descendants in other emancipation countries, cannot be doubted. But it should not be forgotten, that whatever improvement there may be, is due to the training of a superior race of white men, for many generations, and since emancipation, to the facilities for education, morally, intellectually, and industrially.

The Southern white man, under normal conditions, in the absence of excitement and irritating circumstances, is the negro’s best friend. He can here work out his destiny, slowly, as natural law moves—through generations, and he will reach his goal, whether it be high or low, and no man should obstruct, or deny him this. It is only insisted that he is not yet fitted for the elective franchise unrestricted—a right, as jurists hold, not springing out of man’s nature, but a civil right to be conferred by the state upon those most capable of its intelligent exercise. Nor is it conferred by the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments to the constitution; those amendments are merely limitations upon the states preventing them from enacting a law excluding negroes from voting, because they are negroes.

They do not prevent restrictions upon voting, if reasonable, and applied to both races.

About one-fourth of the area of the United States is directly afflicted with this race problem, and while the people of the South are more interested in its wise management than the people of other states, yet every patriot and every business man looking forward to that high destiny which awaits us as a nation, must feel concerned for its proper solution.

The matter should be put upon a higher plane than party politics. Investments and rapidly developing industries in the South would be retarded by partisan agitation, and business men, acting through their organizations, should seek to avert it. It is believed that all of the Southern states had, at the time of the adoption of the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments, universal suffrage fixed in their constitutions, and since the legislatures could not restrict suffrage under the old constitutions, the effect of those amendments, was to suddenly enfranchise ex-slaves, while most of their former owners were disfranchised for participation in rebellion.

The latter was not unnatural, but the former was, and must stand in history as the extreme limit to which partisan and fanatical passions have carried men. The most rapacious exactions of pecuniary indemnity, or the stripping the conquered of the very soil of their fathers, are in comparison trifling inconveniences.

That one great enlightened section of the white race, was willing to submerge another great section of its own race, beneath a sea of African ex-slaves, has a parallel only in England’s calling to its aid “the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.”

The one was an offense against _life_.

The other an offense against _institutions_.

The one violated every known rule of civilized warfare; the other consigned the conquered to the dominion of African ex-slaves.

Both will live in history—both will testify to enlightened men, the one, of the horrors of war, the other, of the baleful sequences of war.

By every consideration of prudence, and the general welfare of all concerned the status of the negroes of the Southern states should not be interfered with by congressional, or other outside action. His unrestricted right to vote, and his solid vote as a race, have been the greatest impediments to good government in the Southern states. Never was there a more appropriate field for the application of the doctrine of _laissez faire_.

[11] The English In the West Indies, p. 333.

[12] At Last a Christmas in the West Indies, p. 338.

[13] Man, p. 77.

[14] Great Basin of the Nile, Vol. 1, p. 250.

[15] Lake Regions of Central Africa, p. 489.

[16] A Journey to Ashango Land, pp. 435-437.

A SATANIC SUGGESTION

When de Lawd got Adam all ready foh ter talk,
Sez de debbil, stan’in’ by ’n’ lookin’ shahper ’n a hawk,
“Dey’s sump’n in de ribs what’s gwine ter make a balk!”
’N’ he wink—dat ole debbil.

De rascal met Adam pokin’ ’long one day;
“You’se lonesome, Mistah Adam?” ’n’ he went on ter say,
“Ax de Lawd ter make you sump’n ter dribe dat away.”
’N’ he grin—dat ole debbil.

De Lawd tuk de rib right outen Adam’s side.
When de woman’s all done Adam’s so glad he cried.
Nen comes dat fuss in de gyahden—’n’ de debbil neahly died!
He laf so,—dat ole debbil.

_William Chester Estabrook._

REMUS

(WAS MY DOG)

A SERIAL NARRATIVE OF FUN, FISHING AND FIGHTING FORTY YEARS AGO

BOY TALES FOR BALD HEADS

By Laps. D. McCord

BATTLE OF BURKE’S ORCHARD

Ed and I skinned our rabbits and sunk them in the creek and kept on over to Burke’s apple orchard, where we found two dozen boys belonging to all parts of town and representing all the gangs and tribes and feuds. Newspapers prate about Kentucky feuds, Italian vendettas, the Mafia and such petty things, as if they were in it alongside of the Fayetteville feuds. There were various and sundry deadly schisms existing among the several factions, with sub-feuds between the minor clans, under-feuds, super-feuds, and inter-feuds, until the feudal system ramified the whole body politic of Fayetteville boydom so thickly that you could roust one up and make grim visaged war wrinkle his front whenever two or three boys were gathered together, except at Sunday-school.

I have not a word in protest of the outrage perpetrated upon us by the Kentuckians and Italians, in imitating our feuds. Everybody knows it is a brazen infringement, but these people are outside the jurisdiction of our two judges.

The clans were dividing, and a brawl brewing when we got there, and it looked like there was going to be about a five-pronged battle, with perhaps a little side rock-polemics and personal gouging disputations. Ed and I did not know the merits of the question under debate, but in those days the code did not require you to know the mere vulgar details and causes. All you wanted to be certain of was that the other fellows were there. The world should rid itself of the delusion that it requires any especial aggravation to prompt a boy to hit at any head he sees poking up.

The first thing I saw, Sam Ramsey had climbed after a particularly red apple that Bob Neeld had claimed the week before, and when he shook it down John Formwalt picked it up and bit it. Fon Feeney, who belonged to a subsection of the Ramsey Rooters, saw the dirty deed, and he smashed John on the jaw with a rotten apple, and Bob grabbed the red apple. A boy does not mind being hit with a pile driver or a club, or being shoved off a house backwards, or shaken out of a tree, in a fair fight; but he despises to be hit with anything soft and rotten. When Fon hit John, Will McEwen made a dive at Fon, but Bob Wilson tripped him up and fell on top, and in rushed eight fellows, looking for an opening. John Formwalt, with rotten apple smeared over his jaw and running down under his shirt, was a terror to see, and here he came making for everybody in sight, but he ran jam against Charlie Fulton’s fist, and stopped to count the stars. Then Matt Neill came frisking up to close the debate, and Willis Bonner landed on Matt’s snoot, and he hunted grass. There was a mighty mixtry along about then of gouging boys, and Sam dropped out of the tree right on top of the Kilkenny bunch and went for every head in sight.

Spot Miller had been sparring for an opening for an under-hook, and was about to run his fist clean through John Perkins, when Big Yaller Marshall started for Spot and I punched Big Yaller in the paunch and doubled him up. It is swollen to this day. Fitzsimmons hit Corbett just a little above where I hit Big Yaller, but he wrote me afterwards that he aimed at the same place. Ed ran clean over Bob Bright to get at George Morgan, who had Bob Clark down rubbing dirt in his mouth. It was just getting where the fun was ripest when Bob Bright called a truce. Bill Allen’s nose was bleeding again, and the boys all wanted to see that, for Bill had the out-bleedingest nose ever stuck on mortal face. I have seen it myself, coupled with what other boys have seen and sworn to, bleed four barrels on a stretch, and a good deal on the ground, judging by the way he messed up his clothes and things around for ten feet, though of course he may not have bled more than half that much. Billy Hill ran over home to get a bunch of keys to hang down his back, and I rolled up a piece of paper and made him put it over his front gums and draw his lip tightly over it. Hal McKinney (his father was a doctor and Hal was then a candidate) pressed his fingers hard up and down by the side of Bill’s nose, and Ed made Bill spit on a chip and he went off and hid it under a rock. That last is considered about infallible, but it all failed on Bill’s nose, and then Big Yaller told him to scratch in the ground with his big toe, and bleed forty drops in it and cover it up with a leaf and say:

“Bloody nose, two big toes,
No more blood than this goes.”

Strange to say, that failed, too. When Bill’s nose started in to play ball it finished out nine innings. Bill is no more, and a royal good fellow he was, but I have seen him shed more blood than Bragg’s army, and I can prove it. Bob Bright started home with Bill, where they knew better how to humor his nose, and George Steel laughed at John Formwalt’s smeared face, and John doused him, and the war broke out with worse sanguinary symptoms than ever, the crowd gradually dividing into two parties and backing off and resorting to rocks. It looks dangerous and bloody on ordinary white paper like this to read about two dozen boys, all throwing rocks at short range, so thick and fast that you might hold up your hat and catch it full, and it looks like somebody ought to get hurt, but they don’t much. I never saw a boy knocked more than one somerset at a time, and besides that, a boy is as hard to hit as a kildee.

Stooping for a rock, I dropped my pistol and Spot Miller picked it up and the boys all saw it, and peace brooded instanter. Every fellow dropped his rocks and crowded in, and I had every marble in the crowd in half an hour. While these negotiations were proceeding Ed had climbed a tree and a limb broke and he fell out and broke his left arm. Ed always regretted it when he broke his arm, and I have seen the poor fellow almost cry over it. It disqualified a fellow for so many of the pursuits, forcing him to lie up for the bone to knit. Besides that, Bill Allen made arm-breaking so common that the boys got tired of it. Bill fell upon every rock he came across and broke his arm, and then he would rebreak it and break it over in another place. At first it was something to have your arm broken, and a fellow was envied and looked up to, but at that time a collar-bone fracture was considered more _recherché_ and _distingué_. When I was a boy you had to break all of a boy’s legs and arms and things to disqualify him for the game. One little measly fracture was just fun, and kept a fellow out of the garden. The only difference that it made with Ed and me was that I had to dig all the worms for two weeks and sort o’ hold and piddle around and back him up.

I went home with Ed—and don’t you think they sent for a doctor? I could have set it myself, but they did not ask me; and, besides that, it did not need setting. I would bet on Ed’s arm growing out strong and straight every time. He was that sort. If it had been cut off it would not have surprised anyone who knew him to see another one grow out. I have already told why it happened—because he failed to make a cross mark and spit in it before breakfast. I think now that was also the reason I missed that rabbit—if the reader persists in saying that I _did_ miss it. I am willing to admit that the suspicions were against me until I showed the wounds on the rabbit, but I am not going to try to cram anything down public credulity, because I have several more things to tell that I am not willing to swear to, and it is necessary to have the confidence of my creditors.

While Ed’s arm is knitting I will gather up a few odds and ends that are needed to round out these exciting narratives. Ed could make a bow and arrow that was a perfect Indian’s dream, and I doubt if the Six Nations had anything like them. Find a green cedar limb about an inch thick and cut it to three feet length; trim the knots smooth and shave it just a little each side of the center on the concave side at the places where it must gently bend; cut a notch on the side just at the center for the arrow to rest in, and string it with a stout cord. Cut your arrows out of straight hickory and make them plumb, and then take a piece of tin about two inches square and roll it into a sharp spike and fasten it on tightly with a rivet. You can send that arrow through a two-inch plank and hit a tree two hundred yards.

Tony was a little negro boy who lived at Mrs. McEwen’s. We used to hold him down on his back and prop his eyes open and let the sun shine in. One day I shied an arrow straight up and it came down and struck Tony on the forehead about the edge of the hair and went in under the skin of his forehead, clean down to his eyebrows, and stood up like a flagstaff. I pulled it out and made him tell that a piece of stovewood flew up and hit him.

I shot one of Dr. McKinney’s pigs one day through and through, but I did not mind the loss of the pig nearly so much as the loss of the arrow. The contrary little thing ran straight up to the back gate, squealing, and I had no chance to rescue my arrow. Bob McKinney offered the arrow to me next day, to see if I claimed it, but I was too many for him—I had never seen it before. They were also too many for me—Joel, Bull Woolens, Tobe, Hal and Bob—and it would have been very unhealthy to claim it with five McKinney boys to one me.

Remus suffered an accident one day that came near disfiguring him for life. I went into Doug Farquaharson’s barber shop and Remus followed, and then I came out and Remus tried to follow, and there is where he made the mistake of his life. Doug was a negro who belonged to Colonel Farquaharson. I hardly imagine that if Doug had had the selection of his own surname he would have hit upon such an incongruous befuddlement of letters to spell a name that was pronounced plain “Ferguson,” but I mention the name only to say that if you take all the letters in it and rattle them around in a milk-shake a week and then sling them out promiscuous-like, they would spell something that looks a little like Remus’ face did when he got out of that shop. There was a long mirror on the wall right by the door, and when I went out and closed the door after me, Remus thought I went out through the mirror, and he took a running start and made a leap at it. If Remus ever had any lurking notion that he could jump through a brick wall, offhand, he was cured of it then. He tried his best, but it would not work. He was the most surprised dog when he bounced back that ever carromed on a plate glass mirror, but he was not half as much astonished as he was messed up. His countenance was utterly shipwrecked. No one has ever heard me lay claim to any very beatific personal beauty for Remus, but I never knew a dog in my life to lose more sweet elegance of expression than Remus did in half a second. I was about thirty yards off when I heard Remus hit the wall, and I thought I saw it bulge out a little, and I stood there four minutes and heard glass falling. I never went back to Doug’s any more to see whether or not the mirror was injured. I was afraid I might do him some personal injury for setting his mirror where it could inveigle Remus into making such a grave mistake. Four minutes of rattling glass, and the door opened and Remus popped out, with Doug after him with a barber’s chair. I broke for Frog Bottom and Remus for home. He stayed under the house a week, and when he came out his tail was so firmly fixed between his legs that a surgical operation was necessary. I understand that the wall where Remus hit is soft to this day, and that once in a while a fragment of glass falls out yet. It is worthy of remark, and the statement carries with it a solemn warning to the reader, that I had neglected to spit in a cross mark before breakfast that morning. The very next day I saw a black snake over my left shoulder, and a boil broke out under my right arm that very night. We cannot be too watchful, brethren.

AMBITION LURES

“Ed, dog-gone my cats ef I know whether I want to fight Indians or not! I’m afraid One-eyed Sam’ll have ’em all killed ’fore we kin git there.” A new ambition had struck me and I was wabbling between being a stage-driver or an Indian fighter. Ed was amazed and replied:

“Dod-bust it, Laze, ain’t we done ’greed to go, an’ got ready? They ain’t nothin’ in this pokey ol’ country to keep a fellow awake.”

“Huh! I’d druther be in Granville Thompson’s place an’ drive the Huntsville stage than to kill all the Indians I ever see,” I ventured.

“If I thought there was any more bugle horns in the worl’ lack Granville’s an’ I could git to blow one, I’d druther be one, too,” said Ed. “I’d druther come a-sailin’ up the river lane on top o’ that big ol’ stage a-yank-in’ them lines over four horses jes’ a-prancin’ an’ a-gallopin’, an’ a-toot-in’ a tune on that brass bugle—Ta-ta-te-ta-ra-ah! Gen-tul-_men_! I’d druther be that than to be a policeman almos’. But we done promise the boys, Laze—how’re we goin’ to git outer that?”

“’Spect we better not let on for a while,” I said, “cause we mightn’t git to drive a stage. But we gotter do sump’un mighty quick, Ed. Dog-gone ef I ain’t jes’ a-gittin’ hungry to smash sump’un-nuther.”

“Git your pistol, Laze, an’ le’s go over the river an’ kill hogs. That’ll keep up the tas’e in our mouths ’till we go Wes’.”

“I lack to clean forgot,” I said excitedly. “’Sposin’ we run off with that circus that’s a-comin’ nex’ week? Betcher I kin ride stan’in’ up ef you’ll let me put rozum on my stockin’ feet.”

“I done bin thinkin’ ’bout that, but ef I don’t go out Wes’ I ’spect I’ll hafter be a dod-busted preacher. They’re jes’ after me at home all the time to be a big preacher,” said Ed. “I dunno whether to be a circus rider or a preacher, Laze. Which’d you druther?”

“Shucks, feller—anybody kin preach. I want to be sump’un sho’nuf when I git a man. I’d druther have a grocery store lack Bill Yates’s than to be a dratted presidin’ elder or a bishop. Ef I had a store lack that with nothin’ to do but to eat candy, an’ cheese, an’ sardines, an’ pickles, an’ sech things, an’ set up in the back room an’ play the fiddle an’ chew terbacker an’ spit, dog-gone my cats ef I’d quit that to be a policeman or a emperor.”

“So’d I,” said Ed, “but what’s the use o’ tryin’ to do that? Betcher Bill Yates’s got more’n fifty dollars worth o’ goods. Nex’ time you’ll wanter be a queen o’ somewheres. I never see sech a feller for tryin’ to git to be the bigges’ man in all this whole worl’.”

“They’re raisin’ me to be president,” I said sorrowfully, “an’ I ’spect I oughter be in Congress right now. All of ’em at home don’t want me to be nothin’ but some dad-gum little thing lack that.”

“Well, if I hafter be a dod-busted bishop an’ you nothin’ but president, the boys’ll laugh us clean outer town,” said Ed.

The foregoing conversation occurred on our wood-pile one moonshiny night about frost. There is no telling what heights Ed and I might have attained if our destinies had not been controlled by persons totally devoid of ambition to shine in the greater walks of life.

[_This isn’t all_]

NAPOLEON