Outrages in the South

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jan 31, 1871

Outrages in the South.

The outrages reported from the South are not fictitious, but the veritable outbreaks of rebel hatred to the Government, and an undisguised hostility to fair elections wherever the Republicans are in the majority. In Kentucky, which, however, is not included in the list of States referred to in the President’s special message just sent to Congress, the lawlessness has become so conspicuous and outrageous, that there is no pretense of denial. Gov. Stevenson himself called the attention of the Legislature to the subject; but between the Executive and that body nothing is done. The Governor complains that he has not sufficient force with which to execute the laws, and the Legislature explains that it has no authority to raise any such force; at all events it neglects to do so. Events which have just occurred at the very capital of the State, indicate that men, high in authority and influence, are not beneath the commission of these outrages. At the recent election in Frankfort, there were provided two voting places, one for the whites and the other for the blacks, separated by a barrier. As the election proceeded it became evident that the Republican candidates were running ahead, and unless something was done, their election would be secured. Accordingly an attempt was made to destroy the barrier, in the evident expectation that the colored voters would be frightened away. While this attempt was in progress, some one—and the evidence taken before the coroner’s jury clearly shows it was a white man—drew a pistol, and fired it. This created general confusion, and in the fracas that ensued, William Newman, a worthy and respectable colored man, was shot, and so seriously wounded that he died soon after.

At the inquest into the murder, Mr. T. N. Lindsey, a Democrat, but a lawyer of high standing and character in that place, testified that he was three times jammed away from the voting place by persons who had voted, and had finally to get to the polls by a side door. The mayor refused to preserve the peace, and had given orders not to interfere except in case of actual bloodshed. Another witness testifies that Mr. Rodman, Attorney General of the State, was present, and in reply to a remark that a disturbance seemed probable, said “that was just what the Democrats wanted, then they could get possession of the polls.” One of the election judges declared that they would beat the Republican candidate “or have a fight;” and the coroner, since the murder, has said, “The matter must be hushed up.”

Shortly afterward occurred the Ku-Klux outrages near Frankfort. The story of them is told by the Yeoman, of that place, which is a Democratic paper, and its testimony cannot well be impeached. Last Wednesday or Thursday afternoon, a band of mounted men, seventeen in number, armed with double-barreled shot-guns, and with masked faces, set out on a hunt for negroes, exactly as the Indians on the plains start on a buffalo hunt, or Europeans in India go forth to shoot the tiger. They first visited the house of a barber, in a town called Stamping Ground; but luckily for him, they found him absent from his lair. A colored shoemaker, an inoffensive man, was discovered a quarter of a mile further on, however, and shot while sitting in his house at work. About sundown they reached Watkinsville, and were about to make a predatory raid upon it. The negroes hastily gathered with arms in their hands, and, after a brisk fight, drove them off. In the skirmish three negroes were wounded, and one Ku-Klux, or “regulator,” as they call themselves, was killed and one wounded. It is believed that the same band has been operating in Henry and Shelby counties. They are entirely lawless—a depredating, murderous set of men. There is just as much reason for their suppression, as there would be if a band of seventeen mounted men should set out from Wayne County shooting chance citizens while at work in their shops and fields.

These two instances of outrage in Kentucky are examples of thousands of similar cases which have been perpetrated during the last five years in the South, and reported by the National authorities. Page after page of documents accompanying the special message of the President is filled with summaries merely of the official statements of the murder, robbery, arson, insult, whipping, lynching, burning, hanging, of the colored people generally, of the white people sometimes.

It would be unjust to pretend that these are all outgrowths of peculiar wickedness in Southern society. Many of them are results of the disorganized condition in which the war left that people. But deducting the crimes which would occur under any circumstances; deducting the unpunished crime resulting from social disorganization, there is left an immense residue of crimes against the citizen as a colored man or as an obnoxious political opponent. They are committed either for the sake of terrifying both the negro and the white man from voting the Republican ticket; or of punishing the black one for voting it; or for the sake of breaking up his contracts on the plantations and stealing his share of the crops; or for the devilish satisfaction of a hatred for him and his race, and a craving to torture the weak and helpless.—Detroit Post.