“Among these were four ex-governors of three different States, who had received pardons from President Johnson. Our conversation naturally and necessarily turned to the future of the emancipated negroes. Their past and present condition was discussed, and their chances as well as our own were of course considered, and everything that could bear upon their future was canvassed. The course to be pursued by the Legislatures of the reconstructed States, and the laws to be enacted, in order to obtain the fulfilment of contracts with the freedmen employed, occupied no small portion of consideration. In this way I had full opportunity to learn the opinions of those who have been and will be again looked up to as the leaders and directors of Southern opinion and sentiment.
“The unanimity of all was not the least singular thing, especially regarding the status of the freedmen and their rights hereafter. If legal chicanery can avail, those rights will be but nominal, and they will remain, as they have ever been, isolated and apart,—free in name, but slaves in fact.”
It seems that in Georgia there is a body of men known as “Regulators,” who are thus described by a correspondent of that journal which has for years whitewashed the enormities of Slavery, the “New York Herald”:—
“Springing naturally out of this disordered state of affairs is an organization of ‘Regulators,’ so called. Their numbers include many ex-Confederate cavaliers of the country, and their mission is to visit summary justice upon any offenders against the public peace. It is needless to say that their attention is largely directed to maintaining quiet and submission among the blacks. The shooting or stringing up of some obstreperous ‘nigger’ by the ‘Regulators’ is so common an occurrence as to excite little remark. Nor is the work of proscription confined to the freedmen only. The ‘Regulators’ go to the bottom of the matter, and strive to make it uncomfortably warm for any new settler with demoralizing innovations of wages for ‘niggers.’”
Such is the unimaginable atrocity which, according to friendly authority, prevails in Georgia. The poor freedman is sacrificed. The Northern settler, believing in Human Rights, is sacrificed also. Alas that such scenes should disgrace our country and age! Alas that there should be hesitation in applying the necessary remedy!
Surely this is enough. I do not stop to dwell on instances of frightful barbarism. One is authenticated in the court of the provost-marshal, where a colored girl was roasted alive! And another writer, in a letter just received, describes a system of “burning” in Wilkes County, Georgia, as “a mild means of extorting from the freed people a confession as to where they have their arms and money concealed.” He says, “They were held in the blaze.” Think of it, Sir, here, in this Republic, they are held in a blaze! And the National Government looks on!
From Georgia pass to Alabama, only to find the same evil spirit and the same succession of enormities, intensified, if possible. Here again I am embarrassed by the variety and extent of evidence.
A recent private letter from Mobile testifies:—