WHITES AND BLACKS OR THE QUESTION SETTLED 31

CHAPTER V. SHALL THE WHITE MAN AND THE NEGRO SEPARATE? 

I must confess that I was disgusted, when I heard that a number of Negro preachers, of the Baptist denomination, had passed resolutions, asking the government for fifty million dollars for colonization purposes. I have regarded the leading men of the Baptist church as being very learned, but this action does not increase my regard and respect for them, as thinkers. It may be that “smarting" with wounded feelings and bleeding backs, received and caused in connection with the Baxley outrage, prevented that calm and considerate deliberation which usually characterizes their meetings.

Anyhow, the passing of such resolutions as were passed, and the incendiary speeches which were made in their convention, gives another proof of what men will do while tilled with angry passion. Instead of memorializing Congress and the President of the United States, they ought to have gone into Georgia and laid their grievances before a grand jury, had the parties committing the outrage indicted, tried and convicted. They ought, also, to have taken action against the East Tennessee Railroad for damages, and not refrained from doing so on account of that road, by its agent pretending to be sorry for the occurrence, and probably distributing tickets or passes freely among them.

But they say:

"It is the policy of the State to keep the races separate on the cars, having coaches equal in accommodation for each."

That is true, but if you were put into a certain car, by an agent of that company, and the conductor countenanced the unlawful attack of those men, the outrageous, the railroad company was liable.

"But we cannot get justice in a Georgia court."

How do you know? Go into the courts and see what they will do. Hire able and fearless attorneys, there are plenty of them in Georgia, and appeal to your home people for redress and not to strangers. Keep a correct and accurate minute of the testimony, and if the jury, according to your prejudiced expectation, find a verdict in favor of the defendants, publish thousands of copies of the whole proceedings; evidence, speeches, charge of the court and verdict; let a copy, if possible, find its way into every home, and the sense of right and justice, which are in the majority in this country — the South, will, in the end, give you the victory.

But no, you take the wrong position; you act as though you would have the men of this section, who have a freedom equaling that found in Maine, forced into doing, by Northern interference, that which you want done, but which you have never asked the men here, in the right way, to do.