Debow's Review
"Designs of
Radicalism"
In
this excerpt the editor of Debow's Review lambastes
the Radical Republicans' idea that the races can live
together peacefully. He argues that the Northerners would
not be so eager to advocate equal rights if
African-Americans were more numerous in the North.
It
is absurd to say that two races so dissimilar as the whites
and
blacks, when their numbers are equal, can live in peace
where they
enjoy equal political privileges, where they sit on the same
juries,
serve in the same legislature and hold similar offices. It
is an im-
possibility. One race or the other must be subordinate. So
it has
always been and so it will always be. Does any one believe
that
the white people of Massachusetts or any Northern State
would give
the negroes the same political rights with the whites if
they were
equal or nearly equal in numbers? Where there are only a
few
negroes it makes but little difference, for then the white
race will be
the dominant and governing race. But it is not so in the
Gulf
States. If the negroes enjoy equal political privileges with
the
whites, one race or the other must leave the country.
The
conduct of the New England radicals shows that it is
their
design to place the country in such a condition that not
only will
there be no immigration to the South, but even the whites
that are
now here will be under the necessity of leaving.
The
Southern whites, as a general rule, are disposed to treat
the
blacks with kindness and liberality, and to protect them in
the en-
joyment of civil and personal rights. The white men of
Mississippi
and Alabama are giving the blacks one-fourth or
one-third
of the gross products of their farms. Are any Northern
manufacturers
giving their operatives one-fourth or one-third of the gross
proceeds
of their factories? It is to the interest of the land owner,
when labor
is high, to protect his laborers, so as to win their
confidence and se-
cure their services.
Source: Debow's Review,
November 1867, p. 536.
Negative Reactions
History 122