Emancipation and Emigration: A Plan to Transfer the Freedmen of the South to the Government Lands of the West by The Principia Club — John Shaqi
Emancipation and Emigration: A Plan to Transfer the Freedmen of the South to the Government Lands of the West by The Principia ClubAnonymous
History
Emancipation and Emigration: A Plan to Transfer the Freedmen of the South to the Government Lands of the West by The Principia Club
Anonymous
African Americans -- History -- 1877-1964 -- Sources
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 massacre 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 assurance 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 assassins, who slaughtered the colored
Republicans, at Hamburg, are still at large, and ready for more bloody
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
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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