Rensselaer Union, Volume 2, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 March 1870 — The Negro Question. [ARTICLE]

The Negro Question.

The 15th amendment is ratified •nd the negro in a voter with all the political rights and privileges of the white man. In this count) the vote es the newly enfranchised class amounts to nothing, as there i» not a tingle one within its borders, and we are not sorry that it is so. But the question comes home to every republican of this county who was opposed to the amendment, Shall we still vote with our friends, or shall We go over and vote with the democratic party? What good will it do us to pursue the latter Course? The negro is a voter 3nd he will vote as and prejudices lead him. There is now a strife between the politicians in . those counties where there is a large population, to secure their But ote to the respective parties. The arc that although we will get the majority of their votes at this ooming election, we can not expect to hold them for a definite time, for the reason that in ell counties where there are ncgroca, there are three democrats who employ their labor where there is one republican, and it is well-known to every one .who has examined the democratic politician that he cau dive deeper in “the dirty pool of politics” and come up nastier than any other man. Every republican kftowa that when a negro conies here he is met in a far more friendly spirit of social equality by democrats than by republicans, and this was the case, too, when he had neither political nor civil fights under the government. Since the change in his political status, will they not greet the black man as a person to be courted with the blandishments of the drawing room and the banquet? and will they not hail his advent among them as an aeoession to their party? For an answer to these questions we need only to refer to the letter of a leading democratic editor of this State —Mr. Wbittlesey r , of Evansville—(published m the Union a couple of weeks since), inviting Fred. Doug lass to make Lis house his home during his stay in that city, and in which a welcome was extended to all of Mr. Douglass’ friends, without regard to race or color.— Even in the city of Laporte it is •aid that an Irish democrat was heard to ask an old negro drayman 1 F the 15th “amindmint” hadn't passed and if he wasn’t now a voter? When told such was tho case, Fat threw his arms affectionately aronnd the neck of the old “man and brother” and feelingly exclaim*ed “ begorra thin u-e art frindi and aqueUf” Let no man hug the delusive hope that he can avoid the negro by going over to the democracy, for such is not the case. He is there among them, and on terms of social equality and in his most degraded condition—ignorant and vile. It is well-known that in the southern part of Indiana, where there are many negroes, by far the largest portion of them are employ ed by wealty democrats in their factories, mills, foundries, machineshops, about their offices, on th“6ir steamboats, wharves, farms, as hostlers, eooks, waiters, seamstresses, chambermaids, etc., who admit them to their Louses, their tables, their secrets as equals, and to their literary organizations as intellectual superiors. Then it is better for us to remain with the republican party where the negro is considered just what he is, a man but recently enfranchised, rather than go to the democratic party where lie is fawned upon, flattered and treated as a demi-god. The telegraphic reports of the New Hampshire election are incomplete. There were four candidates tor governor—Stearns, republican; Bedell, democrat; Flint, labor reform; and Barrows, temperance.— stearas is probably re-elected by fjuptween 1,000 and I,£oo majority. The legislature is Mepublican, with > # JgsjgntT red need from last year.