were but little more than a joke. If the two officials were guilty of
drunkenness no one doubts that they could have been legally removed
from office. If the colored people at Marion are divided into
factions, then the whites could the more easily combine forces against
the officials in question, or any political ring which may have
existed. But there was a general Negro uprising threatened, and in
order to save their own lives the whites made haste to get into the
field first. This is the avowed excuse. But it is certain that no one
believes there was serious danger of a Negro uprising. The men
arrested and banished were unarmed, and taken by surprise. If they
were in any sense desperate or dangerous characters they turned
cowards suddenly, making no resistance. Indeed, there is but one
excuse for their bloodless surrender. They display to the world the
utter groundlessness of the charge of a conspiracy. No dynamite bombs,
no loaded weapons, no evidence of organized bands were discovered.

In all the history of the shot-gun policy and the unnumbered outrages
committed, there are on record few, if any, cases of conspiracy
against life and property on the part of the Negro. But the true
animus of the Crittenden County affair, I think, is found in the
current declaration which is used at Marion on the part of the brave
men who drove out these exiles, viz.: "We don't want any educated
niggers, and won't have 'em here, not even to teach school."

It should not be overlooked, that in this instance there is fully
revealed that singular idea which so widely prevails at the South,
viz.: A Negro is in his place only and always as a subordinate. It is
assumed that to educate him unfits him for his mission in life, unless
that education looks simply to some hand service.