Page:Journal of Negro History, vol. 7.djvu/373

 light of this dastardly violence done to aged and inoffensive women by ascribing it as the work of "rash boys." Manly pastime for these brave boys! a crime sir, that in any other State, and done to any other class, would have demanded and met with immediate punishment, perhaps in the Court of Judge Lynch, as was the case in Marlboro County a few weeks ago, when a white lady was abused, the perpetrators, two colored men, met with immediate punishment. They would not have brooked the law's delay. Yea, sir, an outraged community would have taught these "rash boys" a lesson that I fear they will learn in no other school, and the courteous Sheriff would not have been put to the trouble of "inviting them to be arrested."

But, Mr. Chairman, it happens to be the poor despised Africans who have tilled their fields for centuries, educated and amassed for them princely fortunes, and while they were engaged in riveting tighter the chains of bondage, were engaged in the care and protection of their defenceless families. Mr. Chairman, I ask, is this the mode to bring about harmony and prosperity? Will this tranquilize this already distracted country? No, sir. On the contrary, it will raise to its highest temperature the ill feelings of an outraged people, and cause them to adopt for their redress lex talionis, in opposition to the Edgefield lex loci, as Mr. McDuffe truthfully says, "God has planted in the breast of man a higher and holier principle than that by which he is prompted to resist oppression; the vilest reptile that crawls on the earth, without the gift of reason to comprehend the injustice of its injuries, would bite, or sting, or bruise the hand by which they were inflicted. Is it to be expected, then, that freemen will patiently bow down and kiss the rod of the oppressors?" I had hoped that the swift retribution that followed the K. K's reign, and the withering rebuke administered by their own counsel, (Hon. Reverdy Johnson,) would have put an end to these inhuman and disgusting outrages; but, sir, the newspapers must live and thrive, and this can only be done by a healthy subscription list, and, in order to swell that list, they must excite the worst passions of depraved men and pander to their prejudices.

Are the disgraceful scenes that darkened the history of South Carolina and cast a foul blot upon her proud escutcheon to be re-enacted? It must not. If we expect to enjoy peace and prosperity in our State, we must be more mindful of the rights of each other, more tolerant in our political views, and finally, leave the punish-