Democratic Sentinel, Volume 4, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 February 1880 — SENATE EXODUS INVESTIGATION. [ARTICLE]

SENATE EXODUS INVESTIGATION.

Synopsis of tho Testimony Elicited by the Voo:-hees Committee. Green Ruffin, a middle-aged colored mm, from Wilson, N. C., and formerly the slave of ex-Member of Congress Thomas Ruffin, testified that he left North Carolina early in December and went to Indianapolip, and was now “aimin’ to cet back and jis die dar.” This exodus “was ’bjmiuarion on his race.” J. B. Sykix, who resides near Arlington, Va., aud who was once a member of the Vrginia Legislature, was called, and state 1 that in the tes imony which he intended to give ho would charge Senaror W.ndom with originating the exodus, but as the Senator was abient he requested the committee to p n-tpone the examination until the Senator could be present.

R. C. Badger, of North Carolina, a prominent Republican politician, slated that he had made a close study of the negro character before and since emancipation; that the race was slowly and gradually improving, and growing more thrifty and self-reliant. When the war ended both whites and blacks were bankrupt; but they have since slowly emerged from that condition cf poverty. The blacks do no’ get strict justice in the courts, as the;are more easily ccnvic'ed—convictei on weaker testimony, for larcmy than tho whites. He did not believe there was any good reason for the exodus from North Carolina; that the blacks could not compete with the white laborers of Indiana, and he felt satisfied they were going to a state of starvation when they emigrated to the State of Indiana. Referring to the educational facilities in North Carolina, he said the black i were afforded the same common-school facilities as the whites. John B. Syphax,' a Virginia colored politician, who had promised to show that Senator W;ndom was the originator of the excdus movement, was placed in the witness chair, and, eomewhat to the surprise of the committee, he absolutely knew nothing, except that Mr. Wirdom introduced a bill iu the Senate to encoursgo the emigration to the North o° Southern negroes. Mr. Windora asked the witness if they had a lunatic asylum in Virginia, and, being informed by Syphax that they had, inquired further, “ llow did you escape from it?” After comiderable badinage had passed between the Senator and witness on the subject of lunacy and lunatics, Syphax retired.

A B. Maynard, editor of the Indianapolis Sentinel, corroborated tho statement of previous witnesses in regard to the destitute condition of emigrants who had reached Indiana, their desire to return to North Carolina, their assertions that they had been deceived by Perry, and the absence of any demand for their labor in Indiana.