← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · naBaron
Thread ID: 7839 | Posts: 2 | Started: 2003-07-04
2003-07-04 00:41 | User Profile
[url=http://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/connor/connor.html]The Life and Speeches of Charles Brantley Aycock[/url]
An excerpt
**Democrats won. Two years later, 1894, the Populists and Republicans fused their interests, and not only elected several congressmen and judges, but, what was far more important, captured the Legislature. In 1896, by the same methods, they secured control of all three branches of the State government and of many of the counties. The basis of their control was the solid negro vote estimated at from 120,000 to 125,000. Thus the people of North Carolina were to see tested again the experiment which had failed during the days of Reconstruction -- the effort of a party composed chiefly of a negro constituency to provide good government for a Commonwealth founded upon an Anglo-Saxon civilization.
Coming into power upon a distinct pledge to restore local self-government to the people of the State, the Fusionists proceeded to carry this pledge into execution. An act (entitled "An act to restore to the people of North Carolina local self-government") was passed which overturned the system of county government then in operation. Whether so intended or not, the new system turned over to negro rule the chief city of the State, several important towns, and many of the eastern counties. Then the country saw repeated the scenes which have made the memory of Reconstruction a nightmare to the people of the South. Negro politicians, often illiterate, always
Page 68 ignorant, generally corrupt, presided over the inferior courts, dominated county school boards and district school committees, and served as county commissioners and city councilmen. They were found on the police force of the State's chief city, they were made city attorneys, and they were numbered among county coroners, deputy sheriffs, and registers of deeds. Lawlessness, violence, and corruption followed. In some of the counties the situation became unbearable, while in such towns as Wilmington, New Bern, and Greenville neither life nor property nor woman's honor was secure. Governor Aycock did not exaggerate the situation when, in his Inaugural Address, he declared that during those years of negro rule "lawlessness walked the State like a pestilence -- death stalked abroad at noonday -- 'sleep lay down armed' -- the sound of the pistol was more frequent than the song of the mocking-bird -- the screams of women, fleeing from pursuing brutes, closed the gates of our hearts with a shock."
"We have had but two periods of Republican rule in North Carolina -- from 1868 to 1870, and from 1896 to 1898. That party contains a large number of respectable white men, but the negro constitutes two thirds of its voting strength. Government can never be better nor wiser than the average of the virtue and intelligence of the party that governs. .
**
2003-07-04 17:13 | User Profile
Thanks for this.
Very thought provoking. I think I'll spread it around.