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.

With this fact before us, we can explain the dead silence of the
pulpit and the press of the South as touching the first principles of
justice.

The end justifies the means when "Negro rule" is to be prevented, and
to protest against this bold subversion of the great principles of
citizenship in the Republic, is to "wave the bloody shirt." We will
admit that it is by no means desirable that a mass of illiterate
people should hold sway, but we claim that the Southern white people
can break the "color line" if they will, by admitting frankly the
rights of the Negro, and by encouraging him to aspire to an
intelligent and worthy manhood.

* * * * *

EXTRACTS.

Fifty years ago there was a boy in Africa who was taken prisoner in
one of the fierce wars between the tribes, and was carried aw