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Title
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Let responsibility rest where it Belongs
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Source Type
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Newspaper
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Publisher
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The Mongomery Advertiser
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Publication Place
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Montgomery, AL
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Publication Date
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September 30, 1874
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Transcript
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The Advertiser has heretofore charged that the late troubles between the negroes and whites in the Southern States were instigated by Radical leaders for the purpose of checking the reaction against the Radical party in the North and Northwest and all the facts yet developed go to sustain that charge. It is well known that some weeks back a band of armed negroes took possession of the public road leading from Demopolls toForkland, and that they fired upon, and badly wounded two white men. After that an attempt was made by the Sheriff of Greene county to arrest the guilty parties, A fight ensued, and the negroes were dispersed. The Sheriff made a few captures and returned to Eutaw, whereupon the same negroes reassembled on the highway and again bade defiance to the laws, About the same time another band assembled in West Greene, and between the two the Sheriff had his hands full. The more he strove to quell the disturbances the thicker they seemed to gather about him, Finally, the white leaders of the blacks the men who had raised the storm finding themselves powerless to control the mob, fled to the whites for protection against the furies their own evil arts had turned loose on a peaceful county.One of their number, Cookbell by name, in the extremity of his terror, made a clean breast of it. He said that these riots bad grown out of instructions sent out from Montgomery through the delegates who had attended the late Radical State Convention, and that Sloanaker was the individual from whom the instructions had emanated, Other Greene county Radicals confirmed Cockbell's confession, Our readers will remember that we denounced Mr. Sloanaker's remarks at the time that they were uttered. So also did the State Journal. We denounced them because we foresaw what construetion the ignorant negro would place on such language and be cause we knew that nothing but evil could result from it. We can now see that his mission to the Alabama Radical Convention had this one end and no other. We can now see that he came from Louisiana to set on foot a scheme that he, and his cunning co workers in villainy, knew would lead to bloody results, and we believe that he did it in order to verify Radical predictions of bloodshed as the fruit of the acceptance of the Bace issue so long and defiantly tendered the white people of the South by his infamous party. What other business could he have had in an Alabama Radical Convention? And we firmly believe that Oliver P. Morton, of Indiana, concocted the scheme which Sloanaker was sent hither to execute.
