WHITES AND BLACKS OR THE QUESTION SETTLED 17,18

CHAPTER III.

THE WHITE MAN AND NEGRO: AS CITIZEN AND CITIZEN.

All male persons, except untaxed Indians, without regard to color, that cared to do so, of legal age and not under any disability by reason of having committed crime of some sort, voted in 1872.

It is said that a thorough canvass was made of the colored voters and they were told that thenceforth their creed should read:

I believe in God the Father Almighty maker of Heaven and earth, and in the Republican Party equal to his only begotten son, which party was conceived by Garrison, Phillips, Thad. Stevens and Sumner: and born of Abraham Lincoln.

His trinity to worship was God the Father, Christ the Son, and the Republican party, three in one.

And never was smoke more inclined to ascend upward, water to seek its level and the world to rotate upon its axis, than were the colored people disposed to vote the Republican ticket. You could give the black man employment as you did; send your doctor to see him and his family when sick: lend him money when in trouble: clothe him when naked: feed him when hungry; build his churches for him: establish schools for the intellectual training of his children: bury those of his family who died: tell him that you were willing, if you outlived him, to see that he was decently interred: still, on election day, he would go up to the polls and vote against you.

Perhaps you might on perfect equality, sit down and commence to talk with him about his political enmity and ballot antagonism towards you and your interest. His reply would be, to all you said:

"I like you; I appreciate your kindness to me and my family, but you are a Democrat. Mr. B., who is running against you for the office, I do not like him personally as well as I like you, but he is a Republican, and I must vote for him".

You state to him that, if he votes against you and thereby causes the other man's election, he will make you poorer and less able to help him when he wants aid. The statement comes forth from him:

“I must vote the Republican ticket let what will come".

You tell him that the man who is running against you for the office is a stranger in the community: that he owns very little if anything at all: and that you two ought to agree to stand together because your interests are identical, what benefiting the one benefiting the other.

He is still unmoved and says, “you are a Democrat — if all the Democrats were like you it would be another thing (not that he would vote for you), but they are not and I must stand to my party."

Election day came, and there they were, one right behind the other, like a lot of sheep, all voting the same ticket, believing to do otherwise would be to sin against the Holy Ghost. You cannot blame them. You refused, when returning home from the war, to extend the olive branch of political peace and make friends of them, and in that way possessing yourself of their strength, which would have been a powerful lever for your weal.

The despicable political tramps, who saw in your cold and indifferent treatment of the Negro, their bonanza, hurried to his cabin, whispered in his ear, "all white men are not alike, we love you, give us the offices and we will protect you. Fall

down and worship us and all we have shall be given you."

How faithfully the black voters worshipped is well remembered. Who can forget their Moses of South Carolina and their Chamberlain.

Talk about the Negro's fidelity. No people on earth are more faithful, when once you gain their confidence, than the black. I have known a Jacob to cheat his Esau. I have known a Judas to betray his Lord. I have known an Arnold to forsake his country, but I have never known a sensible Negro to desert his admitted friend. It would have been surprising if the colored race had voted any ticket save the ticket of Lincoln, John Brown and Grant. Out on a tempestuous sea, with a leaking barque and an inexperienced crew, what was more natural than for them,glad-

ly, to allow themselves to make for the harbor which appeared the most inviting. They voted in the white political scums they thought to be their dearest friends, but who, in fact, proved themselves their greatest enemies.