Question. What do you think of the Buckner Bill for the colonization of the negroes in Mexico?
Answer. Where does Mr. Buckner propose to colonize the white people, and what right has he to propose the colonization of six millions of people? Should we not have other bills to colonize the Germans, the Swedes, the Irish, and then, may be, another bill to drive the Chinese into the sea? Where do we get the right to say that the negroes must emigrate?
All such schemes will, in my judgment, prove utterly futile. Perhaps the history of the world does not give an instance of the emigration of six millions of people. Notwithstanding the treatment that Ireland has received from England, which may be designated as a crime of three hundred years, the Irish still love Ireland. All the despotism in the world will never crush out of the Irish heart the love of home—the adoration of the old sod. The negroes of the South have certainly suffered enough to drive them into other countries; but after all, they prefer to stay where they were born. They prefer to live where their ancestors were slaves, where fathers and mothers were sold and whipped; and I don't believe it will be possible to induce a majority of them to leave that land. Of course, thousands may leave, and in process of time millions may go, but I don't believe emigration will ever equal their natural increase. As the whites of the South become civilized the reason for going will be less and less.
I see no reason why the white and black men cannot live together in the same land, under the same flag. The beauty of liberty is you cannot have it unless you give it away, and the more you give away the more you have. I know that my liberty is secure only because others are free.
I am perfectly willing to live in a country with such men as Frederick Douglass and Senator Bruce. I have always preferred a good, clever black man to a mean white man, and I am of the opinion that I shall continue in that preference. Now, if we could only have a colonization bill that would get rid of all the rowdies, all the rascals and hypocrites, I would like to see it carried out, thought some people might insist that it would amount to a repudiation of the national debt and that hardly enough would be left to pay the interest. No, talk as we will, the colored people helped to save this Nation. They have been at all times and in all places the friends of our flag; a flag that never really protected them. And for my part, I am willing that they should stand forever beneath that flag, the equal in rights of all other people. Politically, if any black men are to be sent away, I want it understood that each one is to be accompanied by a Democrat, so that the balance of power, especially in New York, will not be disturbed.
Question. I notice that leading Republican newspapers are advising General Garfield to cut loose from the machine in politics; what do you regard as the machine?
Answer. All defeated candidates regard the persons who defeated them as constituting a machine, and always imagine that there is some wicked conspiracy at the bottom of the machine. Some of the recent reformers regard the people who take part in the early stages of a political campaign—who attend caucuses and primaries, who speak of politics to their neighbors, as members and parts of the machine, and regard only those as good and reliable American citizens who take no part whatever, simply reserving the right to grumble after the work has been done by others. Not much can be accomplished in politics without an organization, and the moment an organization is formed, and, you might say, just a little before, leading spirits will be developed. Certain men will take the lead, and the weaker men will in a short time, unless they get all the loaves and fishes, denounce the whole thing as a machine, and, to show how thoroughly and honestly they detest the machine in politics, will endeavor to organize a little machine themselves. General Garfield has been in politics for many years. He knows the principal men in both parties. He knows the men who have not only done something, but who are capable of doing something, and such men will not, in my opinion, be neglected. I do not believe that General Garfield will do any act calculated to divide the Republican party. No thoroughly great man carries personal prejudice into the administration of public affairs. Of course, thousands of people will be prophesying that this man is to be snubbed and another to be paid; but, in my judgment, after the 4th of March most people will say that General Garfield has used his power wisely and that he has neither sought nor shunned men simply because he wished to pay debts—either of love or hatred.
—Washington correspondent, Brooklyn Eagle, January 31, 1881.
HADES, DELAWARE AND FREETHOUGHT.
Question. Now that a lull has come in politics, I thought I would come and see what is going on in the religious world?