The Truth About Lynching and the Negro in the South: In Which the Author Pleads That the South Be Made Safe for the White RaceCollins, Winfield H. (Winfield Hazlitt)
History
The Truth About Lynching and the Negro in the South: In Which the Author Pleads That the South Be Made Safe for the White Race
Collins, Winfield H. (Winfield Hazlitt)
African Americans; Lynching; Southern States -- Race relations
“No security for persons or property, for the Negroes and poor
whites who act with them had a majority on every jury so that
it was impossible to convict one of their number no matter
how plain the evidence. And even if convicted was promptly
pardoned by the infamous executive, Moses. To such an extent
was this carried that Carpenter, the Republican Judge of the
circuit, announced that he would not permit the State to be put
to the expense of trying criminals who were pardoned as soon
as convicted. The citizens assert that Lynch law is the only
remedy for the evils they endure and therefore they proclaim
it. They may be wrong but they are more sinned against than
sinning.”[45:17]
III. “Augusta, Ga., Aug. 23.—Several prominent Negroes
connected with the troubles in the counties below have made
confessions. Jake Moorman, First Lieutenant of a Negro company,
testifies on oath that 19 counties were to be embraced in the
insurrection. All white men and ugly white women were to be
killed. Pretty white women were to be spared and the land and
spoils were to be divided among the Negroes.[45:18] All who
have so far confessed testify to substantially the same as Jake
Moorman.”[45:19]
However, in some States,—for instance, Virginia, Maryland, and
Delaware,—where the Southern whites had control, order was preserved
and comparative quiet prevailed, while the lynching of Negroes was
sporadic, not only during this early period, but even until the
present. Discord and collisions between the two races have been almost
unknown.
It is doubtful if any greater mistake was made in dealing with the
South after the War than in disfranchising the leading Southern whites
and granting the Negro suffrage. The Negro might have been given
the ballot gradually as he proved himself fitted for it without any
detriment. But considering the race as a whole—it may be putting it too
mild—it may be too great a compliment to the Negro,—too disparaging to
the intelligence of the average white boy,—to say that the Negroes,
with some exceptions, at that time were no more fit for the ballot than
seven-year-old boys. Nor was it any more reasonable to expect them
to act the part of men in using it, or in political affairs, than to
expect it from seven-year-old boys. They were, and to a large extent
are yet, a race in its childhood.
President Lincoln, however, seems to have understood better than any
one else of his party what was for the best interest of both races:
That the Negroes, at least, for a while, with proper guarantees and
restrictions, should be in a position of tutelage or apprenticeship
to the whites. Indeed, there is little doubt that he expected the
Southern States to make some such temporary arrangements, for in a
proclamation, December 8, 1863, in reference to the reëstablishment of
State governments by several States of the farther South, he says:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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