The Negro Problem by Unknown
page 78 of 116 (67%)
page 78 of 116 (67%)
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side, wounded as I was, for three long weeks, but he gradually grew worse
and then he died. I went out with the body and saw it buried as decently as I could, and then I went back to Jackson and told the young mistress how brave he was in battle, how good he was to me, and told her all the words he had sent her, as he lay there on that rude cot in the hospital. That is my record as a Confederate soldier, and if you gentlemen care to give me a certificate of registration, I would be much obliged to you." It is needless to say that old Ed. Harris got his certificate. It is insisted upon by the leaders of public opinion at the South, that negroes should not be given equal political and civil rights with white men, defined by law and enforceable by the courts; but that they should be content to strive to deserve the good wishes and friendly feeling of the whites, and if the South is let alone, they will see to it that negroes get becoming treatment. While there is a large number of the high-toned, chivalrous element of the old master class yet living, who would stand by the negro and not permit him to be wronged if they could prevent it, yet they are powerless to control the great mass of the poor whites who are most bitter in their prejudices against the negro. They should also bear in mind that the old master class is rapidly passing way, and that there is constantly an influx of foreigners to the South, and in less than fifty years the Italians, or some other foreign nationality, may be the ruling class in all the Southern States; and the negro, deprived of all political and civil rights by the Constitution and laws, would be wholly at the mercy of a people without sympathy for him. In order to show the fallacy and the wrong and injustice of this doctrine, and how helplessly exposed it leaves the negro to the prejudices of the |
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