Speaking of the negro, Dr. Hart again says, “he may not murder or assault, or even speak saucily to a white person, on most dreadful penalties. Partly for self-protection, still more from a feeling of race supremacy, it is made a kind of lèse-majesté for a negro to lay hands on a white man; even to defend his family or his own life, the serpent must not bite the heel of the chosen people.”
What utter disregard of facts!
Let me cite a few cases which come within my personal knowledge.
In McIntosh County, Georgia, one of the most prominent white planters was deputized by the sheriff to arrest a negro who had been engaged in a riot. The white man authorized to arrest the negro went to his house and called for him at night. The negro refused to come out. The deputy forced his way in, and the negro shot him dead. There were three negroes in the house, all participating in resisting the officer.
The white man’s court acquitted two of the negroes, and sent one up for ten years.
In the penitentiary of Georgia, at this time, are some white men serving out their terms at hard labor for an outrage committed on a negro man in one of the country counties near Atlanta.
A white man, by the name of Alec Harvill, belonging to the class of poor whites, was tried for murder in one of the Piedmont counties for which Mr. Hart has such a contempt, and was convicted.
He is now serving a term in the penitentiary, as he has been doing for the last five or six years.