White and Black

The other day Governor Wells had a black audience of a thousand or more. He "is for continuing the disabilities of the whites, and the negroes who follow him are therefore engaged in a war upon the whites." What is gained by pitting the employers of the state against the employed?

White and Black. Negro suffrage being settled, there is no longer any good ground for the division upon color and a war of races in Virginia. Yet yesterday Governor Wells had a black audience of a thousand or so. That gentleman is for continuing the disabilities of the whites, and the negroes who follow him are therefore engaged in a war upon the whites. What do they gain by that? The whites are the employers, and the negroes the employed. Does it improve the kindly relations between them for the employed to war upon the employer? Is there any pretext for this when the suffrage question is settled if any colored man ought to see the evil consequences that must fellow the continued alienation of the races and the fomenting of strife between the property and labor of the State. The attempt to continue the disabilities of the white man but injures all the interests of the State and involves the negro in a wrong against his best friends and his dearest interests. He is put up to it by corrupt and selfish men, who care nothing for him beyond his vote- who are ready to depart at any moment, and leave him to work his way out of the trouble into which he certainly will plunge if he follows their bad advice.

“White and Black,” Reconstructing Virginia, accessed March 30, 2023, https://reconstructingvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/1309.