CORRESPONDEN CE.

THE NEGRO QUESTION IN AMERICA.

THE Negro Question is hardly less to the fore in the old Slave States than the Irish Question is in Great Britain. It meets you everywhere,—the newspapers are always discussing it, and if you engage in casual conversation with a Southern gentleman, it is sure sooner or later to crop up ; for the coloured man is ever en evidence, and his future is almost as dark, and the feeling against him almost as intense, as on the morrow of the war. If he travels by rail be must go in a separate ear; if he wants to worship God, be must worship him in a separate building ; no inn frequented by white people will admit him—except as a servant—and in some parts of the South he is unable to obtain education for his children. I had, of course, beard much of this before ; but I had not realised how wide is the gulf which divides the two races in the Southern States of America. The other day, a well-dressed mulatto stepped into a mineral-water bar-room and asked for a glass of lemonade. " We haven't got any," replied the bar-keeper curtly, and the mulatto went his way. " Why did you refuse the poor fellow a glass of lemonade ?" asked a Northern lady who happened to be present. " That would not have hurt you." " It would have ruined my business, that's all," was the answer ; and in this instance the barkeeper (though he had lied to the mulatto) doubtless spoke truly. His business was to sell lemonade, and a darkie's money is as good as a white man's. Innkeepers in like circumstances make an analogous excuse. They have no room. Railway Companies, however, being unable to allege lack of accommodation, relegate coloured people to the " smoker," and if they attempt to enter the other cars, simply turn them out. Now and then an indignant " darkie" sues a Railway Company for damages ; but though he has the law nominally on his side, the result is generally so unsatisfactory, and the cost so heavy, that he seldom repeats the experiment. Nevertheless, the Negro is an important political factor; he has a vote, in some districts a majority of votes, and the Constitution of the United States declares that no citizen shall be deprived of the franchise on account of his colour. But the whites protest that Negroes are utterly unfit for the franchise ; that if they are suffered to get the upper hand, the country will be ruined ; and that, by fair means or foul, they will prevent them from getting the upper hand. And it cannot be denied that in this contention there is a good deal of truth. For the most part, coloured people are very ignorant, have had no political training, and vote blindly for anybody who calls himself a Republican. The Republicans gave them their liberty, and they are Republicans to a man. Hence, they are apt to be duped by designing politicians, and in some instances have elected men to high office whose sole object has been to enrich themselves at the public expense. Not very long ago, a State Treasurer of South Carolina, elected by the Negro vote, embezzled $600,000 of public money ; and for other malversations, an ex-Governor of the same State had to change his quarters at the capital for a place in the penitentiary. In order, as they allege, to put a stop to these scandals, the whites (nearly all of whom are Democrats), have adopted sundry devices to nullify the Negro vote, and where fraud has failed to accomplish this object, they have not hesitated to use force. If we may believe the Republicans, however, the aim of the Democrats is quite as much to defeat their political opponents and secure the spoils of office for themselves, as to purify the administra- tion and ensure good government. In proof of this, the Republicans call attention to the notorious fact that when respectable and competent coloured men are elected to office, they are not allowed to act ; that even ex post facto laws are passed to prevent them from acting. A striking instance of this sort has just occurred at Jacksonville, the metropolis of Florida. The State as a whole is Democratic ; but at the last municipal election in Jacksonville, the Democrats, who are exclusively white, were beaten by the Republicans, who, barring a few whites from the North, belong to the inferior race. A natural result of their victory was the appointment of coloured men to civic offices. It was, however, a result to which the Democrats strenuously objected, and they found a way of making their opposition effective. According to the law of Florida, and of most other States, no man can take office save under bond. When Negroes are appointed, this condition is rigorously enforced, and unless every requirement of the law is strictly observed, the appointment is cancelled. As a rule, the Negro makes some slight mistake whereby he is disqualified, or the bondsmen's offers are pronounced unsatisfactory, and he loses his place. But among the Jacksonville Negroes are several men of considerable means, and being advised and helped by Northern Republicans, they were enabled to satisfy all the law's demands. The bondsmen offered by the newly elected coloured officers were unimpeachable ; better, indeed, than many white citizens could have offered. Nevertheless, when the names of the bondsmen were submitted to the proper authority, they were rejected without reason given. Yet, though a success, this was not a victory ; for the power of appointment being vested in the electors and the City Council, and both being Republican, it was not likely they would nominate Democrats ; and if nobody were nominated, matters would come to a deadlock ; the city would have no government, and its second condition be worse than its first. This difficulty the Democrats are surmounting with characteristic audacity. They have caused a Bill to be brought into the State Assembly

(now in session at Tallahasee) for abolishing " home-rule' at Jacksonville, and vesting the appointment of Mayor and all

other municipal officers in a Commission to be named by the Governor of the State. I have not heard whether the Bill has. passed; but nobody doubts that it will pass, or that the Com., mission will consist of candidates who were defeated at the last election.

A similar incident occurred lately at Chattanooga. The Republicans won the city elections ; Negroes forced their way into the council, white policemen were suppressed by coloured constables, and Democrats generally had to "climb down." But they soon had their revenge. Tennessee is also a Demo- cratic State, and the Assembly straightway made a law vesting the appointment of policemen in a Democratic Commission, and enlarging the municipal boundaries by three new wards peopled almost exclusively by Democrats. Since that time, the Negroes and their white allies have been nowhere, and the Democrats rule the roast.

Northern papers characterise these proceedings as arbitrary and unfair to the last degree ; and they are doubtless right.

Even a Russian Czar or a German Kaiser would hardly venture to supersede a legally elected Town Council in favour of their political opponents. Southern papers retort by saying that Northern people do not know what it is to be governed by darkies ; that in similar circumstances Northern communities would adopt precisely similar measures ; and that Southern people absolutely decline to expose themselves to the possi- bility of being arrested by Negro policemen, examined by Negro Magistrates, and tried by Negro Judges,—to say nothing of being taxed by Negro legislators.

The root of the evil is the vicious system of manhood. suffrage, which obtains both in municipal and political elections. A property qualification or an educational test

would exclude so many Negro voters from the franchise as to ensure-white predominance for another generation. I know of

no reason why this expedient is not adopted, except that it would entail in every instance an alteration of the State. Constitution, and the outcry it would cause in the North, where the masses regard manhood suffrage as a semi-divine institution.

Yet though Negroes are looked upon as social and political pariahs, they are not otherwise unkindly treated. There is no- question of the restoration of slavery ; Southern people are fully convinced that it was an economic mistake. There are many instances of infirm freedmen being supported by their former owners; and most old slaves will tell you that though they may have been ill-used by overseers and drivers, their masters were always good to them. In some of the Southern States, however, there still exists an immoral and absurd law making penal the marriage of a white man with a coloured woman,—immoral, became it encourages concubinage ; absurd, because it utterly fails to hinder that mixture of races which it is designed to prevent. The number of light-complexioned people of colour one sees everywhere in the South suggests painful reflections ; and the fact that many of the light-com- plexioned are children shows that the process of miscegenation still goes on. Few white men, it may be presumed, would in any circumstances be disposed to marry a full-blooded negress ; but the law of Georgia punishes with twenty years' imprison- ment the marriage of people, either of whom is ever so. " slightly coloured ;" and as " slightly coloured " women generally prefer white men to black, the consequences may be imagined.

But the prejudice of race is by no means confined to the South, and Northerners who have lived in the old Slave States admit that they neither understand Negroes so thoroughly, nor get on with them so well, as their former masters. Only last month, a coloured child was excluded from a public school in Ohio; the father sued the managers for damages, and got a verdict ; whereupon the school was closed. This incident has formed the text for scores of

leading articles in Southern papers, and the theme of many a.

speech the burden of which is that, were the situation reversed, the Negro would receive the same measure in the North as he now receives in the South. This is quite likely, for the fairest of Northerners will tell you that, though they have a certain sympathy with the black man because he

belongs to an ill-used race, and try to treat him justly, they do nut like him, and would be glad to be well rid of him. Those who pose as his particular friends (President Harrison among

the number), are probably quite as much actuated by political motives as any feeling for him as a "man and a brother," and if he ever ceases to vote solid with the Republican Party, many of his Northern friends will probably discover that he is not fit to vote at all. As the present generation of Negroes have had no personal experience of involuntary servitude," this contingency is at least conceivable. If it should happen, Democrats would doubtless defend Negro suffrage as warmly as they now denounce it ; a reinforcement so potent might, moreover, enable them to set the Irish vote at defiance. Coloured voters are at least as numerous as Irish voters, and quite as gregarious ; whichever way they vote, they will almost certainly vote solid, and there is no love between the Irish and themselves. Whether it be on the score of climate, or because they object to compete with black labour, or that they prefer the life of towns, or for some less tangible motive, it is certain that Irish immigrants do not come South, and always avoid places where coloured folks abound. This mutual antipathy may play an important part in the politics of the future ; it may be the destiny of the despised race to restore the political equilibrium by neutralising the Irish vote, a result which would be as grati- fying to all good Americans as to all patriotic Englishmen.