A friendly relation grows out of real friendship, so that it is necessary here to explain friendship. Mr. Webster gives the meaning of friendship as a state of being friends; a friendly relation or attachment, to a person, or between persons; affection arising from mutual esteem and good will; friendliness; amity; good will.
"There is little friendship in the world," says Bacon. There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity.
Dryden says, "Aptness to unite; conformity; affinity; harmony and correspondence are the signs of friendship." These grow out of that soil and are the forerunners of that friendship out of which a relation must be had to be called friendly.
Now let us analyze this term "friendship." "Amity"—from the Latin, amare to love, or friendship in a general way between individuals, societies or nations. "Goodwill"—I wish you well, peace and prosperity. "Integrity"—moral soundness; completeness; honesty; rectitude.
We have given some of the terms which Mr. Webster used in the explanation of the word friendship. Our purpose for so doing is to see if it is possible to base the relationship which now exists between the two races in the South, upon all the synonyms or any one of them. I confess with candor that I cannot see (nor can any lover of liberty who holds sacred the rights of the human family, regardless of race, color or previous condition of servitude) even a semblance of amity in the treatment which the Negro gets at the hands of the dominant race, in fact, it is just the opposite, the relationship is forced and also one sided.
The seemingly friendly relation is forced from the Negro; that is, he must show up friendly or be lynched by the first angry mob who becomes thirsty for Negro blood.
If we sustain a friendly relation based upon the integrity of the Southern whites, there could be no lynching; the friendship of the white man would cause it to cease at once.
Would to God that they would interpret our actions in the light in which they are rendered and not make us suffer for what somebody else has done, simply because we are weak and unable to protect ourselves against the insanity of the prejudice.
The Southern white people, in their haste, are making an unenviable history at which they will blush in the years to come.
Three innocent people in the State of Mississippi have just been taken from the officers and lynched, two of whom were women. Can a race of people said to be friendly towards another race reach such hasty conclusions? Would not friendship suggest an investigation in order that the facts in the case may be had? But we are living in the midst of a people whose civilization is christianized, thus having in it that friendship which characterised Christ in taking the sins of mankind upon himself. "Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you" (Bible). This text makes friendship conditional and reciprocal; that is, there can be no friendship without mutuality; so that the relation which now exists is not based upon friendship, for the relation which is made to exist is not in accordance with that moral rule given for the government of man, therefore things are not what they seem to be in the Southland.