The Washington Bee Newspaper, December 27, 1890, Page 2

eee, aay Thighs os Pub ished every Saturday at 1109 I stree northwest, Washington, D. ~~ ntered at the Post Office at Washington C., a8 Second Class mail matter. W. CALVIN CHASE, Editor, We welcome to our exchange list the “Flaming Sword,” published at Chigago, Ill, and the Mewpbis “Reflector” published at Memphis Teun. Both are bright pewsy tour page journals. Douglass, Brace and Lynen now hold- ing fed: ral po-itions ought to give them up, and in company with Hon, Jno M, Langston, P. B. Pinchback and other leaders do b.ttie tor the race. Their pow- er Is crippled by offiec holding. Will these gentlemen resign first seeing to it that colored men shall succeed them? We shall see. Have our papers the nerve to speak out? We shall see.—Americap Citizen, Why should these gentlemen resign their positions apy more than other representatives of the white race? The race 1s old e nough to be its own leader. —_____— If Douglass, Lynch, Townsend and others bad taken the race journals and read them, they would have learned weeks ago the cause of the defeat of November. Their talk, vow, on the causes, are @ lit- tle stale. Read the race journals, gentle- men, and keep posted.—Advocate. There is no man in this country more interested in race papere than Mr. Douglass, We know from personal knowledge that Mr. Donglass hus always given from ten to one hundred dollars to col- ored newspaper enterprises. While we have not always agreed with Mr. Deuglass, we know him to be liberal with his money as far as colored papers are concerned. NORTH AND SOUTH. Dr. J. M. Townsend, in an in« terview published in the heat cf the campaign which has just clos- ed, endeavored to impress the Northern colored voters, that they had received practically no recognition from the present ad— ministration in the appointments the two sections numsa” exhibits the- wae gituesion m regard to this matter: At Washington: John R. Lynch, Fourth Auditor, Treas- ury Department, Mi-sissippi; B. K. Bruce, Reeorder of Deeds, D, C.; J M. Townsend, Recorder of the Land Office, Indiana; M. M. Hollard, chief of division, Treasury Dept., Ohio, RH. Ter rell, chiet of division, Treasury Department, Mass In the for- eign service: Fred. Douglass, Min- ister to Hayti, D.C; Alexander Ciark, Mimster to Liberia, Iowa; Jobu Durham, Consal to San Do- mingo, Peon; Bolding Bowser, Consul to Siera Leone, Conn. It will be seen by reference to the above that the North has a larger majority of the important eppoleiments at Wa-hington and also in tie Diplomatic service Bur it is said by some that Mr. Deugiass baving resided at the North for over 50 years and hav- ing practically vo connection in the’S uth. is to all intense and purp ses a northeru man; and that M:. Bruce having spent the great- er part ot his lite at the South, should be considered a southern man. Very well; adopt this ciassification and then what is the result? Every man of col. r from minister down to con Sul, in the diplomatic service, 1s from the North; not a single man from the South in the dip!omatic service and only two, Bruce and Lynch holdi-g important offices in Washington, Another fact worthy of note is that an overwhelming majority of such a8 watchmen, messengers, and lubor~ ers in the departments at Wash- ington, are held by Afro-Ameri- cans from the North. This result arises from the fact that these po- sitions not coming Civil Service, are generally made upon the rec- Republican Congressmen and as these Con- gressmen come very largely from the North, that section gets the We rejoice that the North isso well represented as shown above and we stand ready minor appointments, ommendations of lion’s share. to push to the front each and ev- ery northern man worthy of such efforts. But we regard loathing and contempt the effort of any mav who knowing bimeelf incapa- ble of honorable competition at- suppose we tempts to arouse sectional animos- ities between colored men of dif- ferent sections of the country. The President has appointed a greater number ot colored men to office, than any of bis Republi- can predecessors, but to his credit be itsaid that in making bis se- lectionn he has not insulted the race by appointing men simply becaese they happen to be born on one side or the other of Mason and Dixion’s line. So long as we control the destinies of the irx, Weshball stand unffiuchingly for the rights ot the race, knowing neither Nor.h, South, East or West. BETRAYED THE COLORED RACE. A REMARKABLE ARRAIGNMENT OF THE MISSISSIPPI CONVENTION. A CONSTITUTION THAT MAKES THE BLACK MAN POWERLESS IN THE RIGHTS OF THE FRANCHISE-MONT= GOMERY DECEIVED. [From the New York Press.J {The following remarkable letter is from acolored man, who pro- tests in behalf of his race against what he so ably argues is the odi- ous decree of the late Mississippi Constitutional Convention. Read~ ers of The Press remember the great speech of the colored orator. Montgomery, who indorsed the amendment, here swown to be pre- judicial to his people. Now, for the first time, in his able bat falli-~ cious argument dissected by a man of his own color, who, as this arti- cle proves, is fally worthy of kis steel.—ED.] ‘WORDS. | DEEDS. We must give the} Sec. 5. On and af- negro equal and ex-'ter the 1st day of act justice, for to January, A. D.,’96 that our honor and the following qual- our faith are pledg-jifications are added ed.—Grady’s Bos-'to the foregoing: ton Speech. \Every qualified e- Leave us alone. lector shall be able Outside influencejto read any section will only stir upiof the constitution strife. Let us solvejof this State, or he this problem; weshall be able to un- only understand it. derstand the same Cease your false;when read to him professions of frien-jor give a reasona- dship; we only lovelble interpretation the negro.— The thereof.— Mississ- Southern Democrat-|ippi Constitutional tc Press. | Amendment. yo mre more? | Jackson, Miss., to-secare the “speech of the only negro delegate to the now fa- mous Mississippi Constitutional Con- vention, Mr. Montgomery, and the rea- son foritsso doing was because Mr. Montgomery in his speech had approv- ed everything the convention had done. The publication of this speech, of course, gave rise to a spirited discus- sion. Some approved the speech in its ‘entirety. Others, while charmed with its eloqnence, differed widely and radi- cally from its conclusions. Foremost among the latter class was the Hon. Frederick Douglass, whose letter the World mutilated and then published with the comment that the time had passed when his opinions were either sound or valuable. Mr. Dr. Douglass is past 70, but that of it- self counts for little. He still remains the great tribune of his people, a tall light house on a dan- gerous sea. In view of the fact that his greatest speech has been made in the last ten years the attempt to dispose of his Jetter by a meaningless reference to his age is absurd. But Mr. Douglass needs no vindication. Now to the top- ic under discussion Mr. Montgomery’s speech was indeed eloquent but eloquence cannot conceal its sophistry and ought not_ to shield it from merited censure. On the question Can we subscribe to all he says, and say amen to what the Mississippi Con- vention has done to settle this question? Ianswer, no. Neither the negro nor any intelligent believer in our consti- tution can do. THE QUESTION CLEAN CUT & DEFINED. This is not a question of negro domi- nation. It is a question of constitu- tional domination, whether the consti- tution of the United States shall domi- nate over the constitution of Mississip- pior vice versa. The present charge that the negro, if allowed to vote, will deminate, is as absurd as the charge thirty years ago that he would marry his master’s daughters if freed. If the negro had the will and the powerto dominate in Mississippi, this amendment would not touch him If he has no such desire and power this amendment is unnecessary. If it is urged that he has the desire, the num- bers, and only lacks the intelligence, how will the amendment prevent him from doing so? It only applies to him in his present ignorant condition, and the danger of his domination is not in his present condition, but only when he becomes enlightenened. Yet when he becomes enlightened this amendment becomes inoperative. A strange tissue of contradictions this. It is like caging acatand allowing a tiger to he Bee like fearing a kettle of steam and play- ing tenpins with as many kegs of a mite. _ That the negro does not seek to dom- inate is conclusively proven by his whole brief but bloody effort to be a citizen. During the reconstruction pe- riod he had absolute power in Mississ- ppi, and although he had such able and honorable men as Bruce, Lynch and Hill to draw from, he elected a white nian everytime he elected a Gevernor. And although he now has an overwhel- ming majority in the State, the Legis- lature that provided for this convention had a majority of white members, and the convention itself had only one black | actegate in the person of Mr. Mcnt- gomery himself. One ae casually inquire if Mr. Bruce coul! Treasury; and Mr. Lynch serve as Au- ditor of the Treasury with no less effi- ciency, could not either one of them | manage the meager finance of Mississ- ippi? Would either one of them dis- grace the State by being its Governor? MONTGOMERY’S FALSE POSITION. But to return to Mr. Montgomery: He may ha e surrendered a position he could not longer hold: but why did he make an object and unconditional sur- render? Would his remohstrance have availed nothing? Would his protest have been unheard? In that case he would not have surrendered at all; he would have been captured and plunder- ed. The rights of a hundred and twen- ty odd thousand intrust d to his care would have been violently taken, and those who did it would have been noth- ing less than robbers. f this was the purpose of the conven- tion, regardless of his protest or opprov- al, he app’ars in the strange position of advising robbers how much he pos- sesses and thanking them for plunder- ing him. If, on the other hand, he did have influence, then, in Heaven’s name, why did he not use it to prevent the enactment of a clause so flagrantly un- just as to call forth a rebuke from every fair minded Democratic paper in the country? lWothing is so easy to be misunder- stood, nothing capable of so many strange interpretations as a constitu- tion. The Bible itself is scarcely less comprehended than the constitution, and yet, according to the Mississippi amendment to its constitution. is now to be interpreted by a horde of illiterate voters, so ignorant that they cannot read their names. and the correctness of their interpretation is to be decided by alot of ward politicians so brutal and partisan as to be eligible to the office of supervisors of the ballot boxesuf Mis- sissippi. President Cleveland appointed one Justice of the Supreme Court from Mis- sissippi. When the next Democratic President is elected the State can fur- nish enough to fill the whole bench, and have a hundred and thirty-nine thousand nine hundred and some odd in training. According to which party’s belief, or according to what precedent shall a judge decide whether a man un- derstands the constitution? Will the State furnish him with a library con- taining the decisions of its Supreme Court? Oris he expected to decide off hand and correctly questions upon which the greatest lawyers and jurists of our country disagree If an intelligent but illiterate Repub- lican should give his opinion upon cer- tain portions of the constitution accord- ing to Republican ideas, would an ordi- nary Mississippi election supervisor hold th it he understood it? Ifa Dem- crat should expound it according to his ideas would a Democratic judge hold that he did not understand it? There is no standard by which the judge is to render his decision, and therefore he will render it according to his own opin- serve his country with dis- tinguished credit as Register of the from the first intended to disfranc the negro at any cost and by any means. This purpose they concealed for a time, ‘ but never fora moment relinquished. They brought in the educational amend- ment as an olive branch of peace, but in its foliage they concealed a serpent that has fastened its fangs on the arm of the unsuspecting black man out- stretched to receive it. In commending this action is where Mr. Montgomery made _his fatal error. Here is where he proved recreant to his trust, holding their coats and applaud- ing their work while they stoned his race to a political death. Here is where, ifhe had any weight or influence, he should have used it to its fullest limit, and exerted all the noble powers of his eloquence to have prevented the enact- ment of this clause, should have utter- ed the protest of over a hundred thou- sand stricken hearts, the last appeal of an eighth of a million pairs of lips soon to be forever silent in the politics of their native State. He should have plead that those poor, simple, trusting people be killed by law if their death was necessary to save the life of the State, but not to be butcher- ed. That the angelof death pass by no house except those whose lintels were sprinkled with blood as a proof of their intelligence. That they die on the sword of justice, not by the already red hands of election officers, and that all others guilty of the same offense be condemned by the same law and die the same death. For not doing this he must forever stand condemned before the bar of pub- lic opinion. Perhaps with the best of motives and perhaps with power to have prevented, he surrendered his sacred trust to a foe unable to appreci- ciate his magnanimity and unwilling to stand the test they themselves have made. When all the air was ringing with the word “reciprocity,” I wonder he did not demand it as the only means ofa harmonious adjustment between the two races of Mississippi. He came into the convention under a white flag of truce, yet he has been shown no quarter. He has butchered as cruelly as the martyr’s around the ramparts of Fort Pillow, on the same soil and perhaps by some of the same hands. He has laid enough black votes upon the altar tohave changed the re- sult in any State election since the war, and yet he has not appeared the demon of partisan prejudice. Its voracious appetite is stated only for the time. He will yet see that prejudice, like slavery, increases its appetite by what it feeds upon. The call for the convention might have warned him; its composi- tion might have alarmed him; its de- bates told him what they intended; alas, he has yet to learn what they have done. BETRAYED FRIENDS IN HIS BLIND- NEss. Nothing can injure a cause so much as a traitor ex part and does no cause all the dz without intendin Montgomery has estness convincit en eloquence tha ion. And now according to his opinion the polls Yor tris—imterpretation of -that | ¢ art of the constition? Suppose an ex- nion soldier, one of the. few who sur- vived Fort Pillow, should be asked his opinion of the amendments now before this convention could he ever convince the julge that he understoood the con- stitution, and yet he may have under- stood his duty to his country well enough to have helped Abraham Lin- coln preserve it from the “broad blades and bloody hands” of treason. POWERS THAT NO PARTISAN SHOULD HAVE. What an absurb position. What a shamless betrayal of the grave responsi- ities that rested upon this convention! ause that clothes the mid- assin of yesterday with the powers of a constitutional tribunal to- day, and gives to the partisan ward pol- iticia powers that the Chief Justice of the United States does not possess. Talk abou: the powers of a federal supervis- or uniter the Lodge Elections bill; they shrink into insignificance when com- pare 1 with the unliminated powers of these petty elections office: posse ss absolute power to recei ject votes at will, and are unguarded agai ist any influence that might bribe intimidate or unduly influence them. According to this provision, a man’s disfranchisement will depend neither on his ignorance of the letter nor his ignorance of the spirit of the constitu- tion, but upon his color and his polities. A wayfaring man, though he be a fool, would know under such an arrange- ment all Democrats will understand the constitution, and hence vote; all Repub- licans will not understand it, and hence will not vote, except they can read. In this unjust and inexcuseable sub- sterfuge they have disappointed all who had hoped they would act wisely; have deceived all who trusted in their pro- fessions of fairness, all who believed they were honest and upright men as- sembled to remedy evils that needed heroic treatment, and have deprived of all excuses those who plead they inight be ny tried before they were con- demned. We waited until they had finished, until they hada chance to repair the wr ong, and until all that could be said in -xtenuation has be-n uttered, and now we mnust speak. The outrage and inj istice of their action stings us into protest and embitters every word we write. Upon the question of amending their constitution so as to educational qualification impartia] and imprerative to all I have nothing te say. That is unquestionably their busi- ness, their right, and in this case may | have been their duty. But when, instead of doing that, the convention uses ten thousand illiterate White voters to decoy an eighth ofa million colored voters into a trap, and there robs them of their blood bought suffrage, while it allows the white yot- ers, equally as illiterate and therefore equally incompetent to vote, I say it is an outrage. This convention has vio- lated our constitution, spirit and letter. The sense of justice is strong in every American heart, and the rights of the negro confidingly intrusted to its keep- ing. DISFRANCHISEMENT OF THE NEGRO ITS OBJECT. We can now see that the convention | uire an j no stronger than its weakest link, so a constitution is no bet- ter than its worst clause, be will know that although pretending to build a stable constitutional structure broad enough to shelter all and strong enough to withstand all, liberal enough to per- mit the greatest progress and sensitive enough to feel the least injustice, he stood by and allowed his fellow build- ers to insert a secret spring which op- ened a door of admittance to ten thou- sand illiterate Democrats and that swung toin the very faces of a hun- dred thousand Republicans. I know of no man of late years who has had a grander opportunity or who could have better used it, and yet his iron mettle melted into wax in the fierce light that beat upon him. This conven- tion, with that single negro standing before it, was a picture worthy of a masters’s brush, an occasion calling for a Grady’s eloquence, a marty’s zeal and a Daniel’s courage, and yet in every- th ng except words he fell inmeasurably below it. Berore that stern body of men. grim and determined as ever as- sembled to deliberate, this chosen ora- tor of our race appeareed, and, with lips as sweet as ever charmed men’s souls, he rose to speak. WHAT THE PICTURE REALLY WAS. It was the spectacle of this negro standing there all bayed by enemies, armed with constitutional weapons, meant to slaughter the black voter without scratching the white; it was this man congratulating the conven- tion on its work; it was this negro that calmed their consciences with hisap- probation, quelled the few honest pro- tests with his eloquence, and called down the blessings of heaven upon their “covenant with death and agree- ment with hell,’ asif it had been an offering of eternal peace and justice—a bulwark of “‘liberty for each, for all and forever.” This speech has done injury to the cause of the colored man struggling up through cruel oppression to be worthy of the rights he values and would hon- or. It will deceive many white men struggling against their prejudice and le training to accord him these rights. And to thesimple and trusting peo- ple, whose cause he has surrendered without any necessity. and whose rights he has mortgaged without any security, he has done a wrong, few can measure, for which no penitence can atone. And | ignorant as they may be, they will be | wise enough to know that he has not | secured for them the same rights as the equally illiterate white voters. CHARLES S. Morris, Louisville, Ky, In marky, foggy or variable weather, the breathing apparatus |is oftea thrown out of gear, The remedy for this state of things is Old Saul’s Catarrh Cure, Price only 25 cents. BROWN'S IRON BITTERS Cures Dyspepsia, In- digestion & Debility. 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