VIII
THE CAMPAIGN DRAGS
The campaign for white supremacy was dragging. Carteret had set out, in
the columns of the Morning Chronicle, all the reasons why this movement, inaugurated by the three men who had met, six months before, at the office of the Chronicle, should be supported by the white public. Negro citizenship was a grotesque farce--Sambo and Dinah raised from the kitchen to the cabinet were a spectacle to make the gods laugh. The laws by which it had been sought to put the negroes on a level with the whites must be swept away in theory, as they had failed in fact. If it were impossible, without a further education of public opinion, to secure the repeal of the fifteenth amendment, it was at least the solemn duty of the state to endeavor, through its own constitution, to escape from the domination of a weak and incompetent electorate and confine the negro to that inferior condition for which nature had evidently designed him.
In spite of the force and intelligence with which Carteret had expressed
these and similar views, they had not met the immediate response
anticipated. There were thoughtful men, willing to let well enough
alone, who saw no necessity for such a movement. They believed that
peace, prosperity, and popular education offered a surer remedy for
social ills than the reopening of issues supposed to have been settled. There were timid men who shrank from civic strife. There were busy men, who had something else to do. There were a few fair men, prepared to admit, privately, that a class constituting half to two thirds of the population were fairly entitled to some representation in the law-making bodies. Perhaps there might have been found, somewhere in the state, a single white man ready to concede that all men were entitled to equal rights before the law.
That there were some white men who had learned little and forgotten
nothing goes without saying, for knowledge and wisdom are not
impartially distributed among even the most favored race. There were
ignorant and vicious negroes, and they had a monopoly of neither
ignorance nor crime, for there were prosperous negroes and
poverty-stricken whites. Until Carteret and his committee began their
baleful campaign the people of the state were living in peace and
harmony. The anti-negro legislation in more southern states, with large
negro majorities, had awakened scarcely an echo in this state, with a
population two thirds white. Even the triumph of the Fusion party had
not been regarded as a race issue. It remained for Carteret and his
friends to discover, with inspiration from whatever supernatural source
the discriminating reader may elect, that the darker race, docile by
instinct, humble by training, patiently waiting upon its as yet
uncertain destiny, was an incubus, a corpse chained to the body politic, and that the negro vote was a source of danger to the state, no matter how cast or by whom directed.
To discuss means for counteracting this apathy, a meeting of the "Big
Three," as they had begun to designate themselves jocularly, was held at
the office of the "Morning Chronicle," on the next day but one after
little Dodie's fortunate escape from the knife.
"It seems," said General Belmont, opening the discussion, "as though we
had undertaken more than we can carry through. It is clear that we must
reckon on opposition, both at home and abroad. If we are to hope for
success, we must extend the lines of our campaign. The North, as well as
our own people, must be convinced that we have right upon our side. We
are conscious of the purity of our motives, but we should avoid even the
appearance of evil."
McBane was tapping the floor impatiently with his foot during this
harangue.
"I don't see the use," he interrupted, "of so much beating about the
bush. We may as well be honest about this thing. We are going to put the
niggers down because we want to, and think we can; so why waste our time
in mere pretense? I'm no hypocrite myself,--if I want a thing I take it, provided I'm strong enough."