WHITES AND BLACKS OR THE QUESTION SETTLED 40

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

Here is the proposition:

On account of the fact that in 1880, there were:

in South Carolina, 391,105 white persons and 604,332 Negroes; 

in Mississippi,    577,308 whites        and 650,291 blacks; 

in Louisiana,      454,954 whites        and 483,655 Africans, 

let these States be given to the Negroes, if you want to see how they will self govern. Of course you must first remove "constitutional obstructions" before anything can be lawfully done in the matter.

After the legal way has been prepared, let Congress reimburse the whites for the property they own in the three States mentioned, and turn these States over to the colored people, allowing them to carry on the government as now; these States remaining a part of the Union in the same way that the others are, with the one exception: that the Negroes who desire to vote or hold office must live in one of the States mentioned, and the white men desiring to vote or hold office, must seek and make their residence in other than the three mentioned States. 

Under this system no one would be “forced" out of a State that did not desire to leave; on the other hand the extra inducement and inhibition in certain States would necessarily separate the two noisy elements of this country — the white and the Negro politician.

This arrangement would also give the Negro a chance to copy after the white man who is versed in statecraft. Again, you can empty the States mentioned of white men easier than you can of black men, because the whites do not equal the blacks in number, and because, from a financial standpoint, the whites are better able to travel. 

Do this if separation must take place, thus enabling the separated to make annual visits to their parents' graves and to the old plantation where they spent their childhood days. 

I am of the opinion that the white people living in the States mentioned will never accept the "proposition" above stated. 

It is not necessary that they should, for the once slave and the once bondsman's descendant, free, a citizen and enfranchised, can obtain all which equity, justice and good conscience demand, without any such “going in" and " coming out" of States long settled and now quietly enjoying prosperity.

This section — the South — furnishes homes for two races as distinct as they are inseparable.