A hundred years ago
From the 'Spectator', 26 September 1868—The fruits of the attempt of the Georgian planters to exclude the negroes from the Legislature and to keep them in their old subjection have been a serious riot at Camilla (reported by Atlantic telegraph) between white "Democrats" and "Radi- cal" negroes. "Thirty-five negroes were killed, and five whites and sixty negroes were wounded," says the telegram, so that, as usual, the poor negroes got the worst of open strife. Now, the list of laws passed in the various ex-Slave States, since the close of the war, which embody all the old spirit of the slavery legislation of former days, is appalling. North Carolina has enacted that coloured people should be inadmissible as wit- nesses except in cases to which a coloured person is a party; has made the ravishing of a white by a black a capital offence, and the converse not; has declared all contracts for more than 10 dollars to which a black person is a party null and void, except reduced to writing; a marriage between a white and a coloured person void; and .so on. Mississippi hai enacted far worse laws. also since the peace; and so of the other ex-Slave States. How can any fair man wonder that the Blacks look upon political rights as their only chance to secure equality before the law,—or that they are brutal and violent to those who make such a mockery of their nominal freedom?
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