We have reached, and, in some of the States, have distinctly entered upon, the third stage of our experiment of negro suffrage. In glancing at these, we shall be simply historical, not critical; shall set down naught in malice, but with simple truth as we have understood it. The fragments of the late Confederacy resumed their autonomy as parts of this nation almost wholly under direction of the negro voter. There seemed to be a double necessity that he should be armed with the ballot, that he might defend himself against his old master who showed unmistakable evidence of his purpose virtually to re-enslave him, and that he might maintain the political ascendency of his friends over his master’s old friends. In this first stage we had, as the political representative of the South, what is historically known as the carpet-bagger—an immigrant elected by the Freedman, hated and opposed by the native white; and legislation which burdened some of the States to the verge of endurance was the result.
The second stage was reached when the influence of the general Government was withdrawn from the South, and control passed again into the hands of the native whites. The alien was remanded to obscurity, or found the climate of the North more congenial, and the negro was mightily prevailed upon to forego his right to vote. This gave us what is generally regarded as the reign of Bourbonism. The white vote of the South became solid, and the opposition was almost silenced. We state the fact without commenting upon it or arguing from it. This result we might easily have inferred from what had gone before. The instinct of self-preservation, it would seem, must have compelled such a united front against the outrageous robbery to which the South had been subjected by ignorant and dishonest legislators.
But now we have entered upon the third stage of this experiment. The solid South is broken, not by federal assaults, or through the ambition of carpet-baggers, but by native greed of power. The irrepressible conflict between the “ins” and the “outs” hurls to the ground the fabric which seemed to the South so fair and so strong. The hero of a hundred battles leads the ignorant negro to the polls, deluded by lies and false promises, displaces one-armed Confederates who had fought under him, to make room for a low grade of negro politicians, trails the honor of a once proud old commonwealth in the dust, and dissipates forever the fond delusion of a solid white South. We have had the negro placed in authority for a brief day by federal power; then by a certain reaction driven from the legislative hall, and in many cases from the ballot box, by the outraged white restored to power. Now we are to see him debauched and led to the polls by political demagogues, in a desperate and most demoralizing struggle for office.
Which stage has been, or promises to be the worst? Concerning this there would doubtless be difference of opinion, according to the latitude of those who express it. To the Southern white, nothing could seem more terrible than exposure to the insult and burden of negro legislation; not simply because it is ignorant, but chiefly because it is negro legislation. To the average citizen of the North, the stories told of wrongs and cruelties perpetrated by the Southerners in their efforts to deliver themselves from this, to them, intolerable degradation, have seldom been eclipsed in horror and utter fiendishness, and nothing could be worse than that a solid South be maintained. But to us who have been trying to grasp, in order that we may solve, the great problem involved in the negro’s relation to our national life, and the kingdom of our Lord, it seems evident that we are just beginning to get a glimpse of the danger we are called to face, and with which we must grapple. Hitherto we have chased the bear, and the chase has had its dangers; but now the bear has turned to chase us. We can no longer calmly discuss the question, “What shall we do with the negro?” but it becomes one of vital interest, “What will he do with us?” We have put a bludgeon into a giant’s hands, with which he will beat out our brains, unless we soothe and exorcise the devil that is in him.
There is this one way out of our danger, and there is none other. We have been bold enough to attempt the experiment, staking the life of our Republic upon the issue; let us be wise enough to supply, with all promptness and fidelity, the conditions which shall ensure its success. While the statesmanship which thrust the problem upon us has given itself no concern whatever as to the issue, Christian charity has shown that a blessed solution is possible. Our schools have proved that of the ignorant slave a wise and useful citizen can be made. The path of safety has been clearly pointed out; now let the means for achieving this safety be supplied. We believe the nation ought to do it. We know the patriot and Christian must do it, or this third will prove to be the final stage in this experiment, not only of equal negro citizenship in a free Republic, but of Republican government itself.
AFRICAN NOTES.
—Africa is the most profoundly interesting of missionary lands, because it is God’s greatest providential mystery. Great in antiquity, great in its ancient curse, great in its colossal wickedness, great in its hideous wrongs, great in its tremendous difficulties as a mission field, great in its costly missionary sacrifices, great in its future possibilities for Christ and the world. The eyes, the efforts, the progress of the Church of God, must ever be more and more directed to this grand Satansburg, as Dr. Schlier would call this great citadel of sin.—“Bible in all Lands.”
—Africa is the white man’s grave; to him the sentinel of death stands five miles out at sea; pass beyond that line and sleep on shore, and death is almost certain. “The story of all past mission work on that Dark Continent,” says Dr. Blyden, “is one of the saddest of our missionary stories, and three hundred years of European intercourse with West Africa has left the people worse than it found them.” With these facts before me, I do not hesitate to assert my honest conviction that Africa is to be redeemed by, and through the instrumentality of, her own sons. If we will now do our duty to bleeding Africa, and not debauch her people with intoxicants, then we, of the Anglo-Saxon race, may yet sit as a grand jury over that Continent, introducing all the arts of civilization, and all the pure influences of Christianity. I am encouraged in this belief from the fact that no tribe in the immediate rear of Liberia is considered perfect, unless it has a man who can speak English, and this may be the language of Africa in less time than many of us think.—Edward S. Morris.