Ebook The Negro Problem

From first to last it should be borne in mind that the Negro Problem is a race problem. It is true that the great mass of the Southern negroes vote republican ballots. This, however, is not because they have any definite convictions upon questions of public policy, nor yet, except to a limited extent, because it was the Republican party that conferred upon them freedom and the franchise, and that to-day affects to be their one champion and guardian. Their intellectual condition renders the first idea ludicrous. The second is largely shorn of its claims to consideration by the fact that enough negroes have resided at the North to fully enlighten their race at the South as to how far white Republicans in the former section are disposed to fraternize with the African in all the personal and business relations of life. When to correct information in this respect is added the begrudging Spirit in which a few petty offices are awarded to the Southern negro as his part of the spoil of a presidential election, it is hard to see how the emotions excited in him by the Emancipa tion Proclamation, the post-bellum Amendments to the Fed eral Constitution and the present professions of the Republican party could be otherwise than considerably cooled. The Southern negro votes a republican ballot because it is the race prejudices of the Southern whites, which he heartily reciprocates, and not the race prejudices of the Northern whites, that bear directly upon his daily life.