Franklin Repository

Last week's REPOSITORY contained a communication detailing the action of the Democratic Board of School Directors of St. Thomas township towards a little colored girl, who was attending one of the free schools. Strange as it may seem, the writer actually thought, and didn't hesitate to say, that their action in the premises was unjust, arbitrary and without warrant of law. Evidently honest in his convictions, we cannot help expressing unmeasured surprise at his mistake. The gentleman is without doubt the victim of uncontrollable prejudice in favor of the "nigger," else how could he write as he did?

This little girl, a negro girl, the offspring of a "degraded race," perhaps nearly white, but still belonging to "Canaan's accursed race," had the audacity, the boldness, the insolence to stand at the head of all her classes, to trap down all her white school mates, and kept them down. What right had she to be smarter than white children, she with her tawny skin and adultered blood? Did she have no respect for the superiority of the proud Anglo-Saxon race, that she must spell better, and read better, than her white class-mates? Had she lost all sense of inferiority? Did she no longer feel instinctively low in the presence of her betters? It seems not. She actually dared to have brains, and use them, to compete with white children in the struggle for learning, and to surpass them. Think of it, O ye Democratic fathers, that in your very strong hold, in St. Thomas township, with a full Democratic board of Directors, such a thing could be ? that here, of all places, your favorite theory of negro inferiority should be challenged. Why, in the name of their degraded inferiority, you had enslaved them, and bought them, and starved them, and were you going to allow a little "nigger" to prove that it had all been false? Never, if it took a whole Democratic School board to keep her down. Your own children might be stupid intellectual blanks, through whose impenetrable skulls an idea never could reach unless they were trepanned, but it should not be said that a "nigger" was smarter than they.

Hence; we say that the Democratic School Board of St. Thomas township was right, when, in solemn council, it resolved that Joe Winter's little girl should be kept at the foot of her classes. It was not only right, it was heroic. Like brave men they threw themselves into the breach and fought back the assaults of the negro upon the Democratic citadel. Oh it was a chivalrous deed, and deserves to be cherished in grateful recollection by the Democratic party. Six men, clothed with the authority of School Directors, waged an unequal warfare with a little colored girl and came off victorious. Six men rose in their official might and rescued their children from the shame and infamy that the "despised race" was inflicting upon them; and bravely did they do their work. It reminds us of the old story -

"Father and Mother and me and twelve good soldiers more,

Beat an old woman stone blind who had never seen before."

Doubtless those brave fathers went back to their homes and looked fondly, proudly, on their children. Hadn't they crushed the ambitions to excel out of the little colored girl? Hadn't they taught her that she belonged to the "despised race?" that the sublime declaration "that all men are born equal" only meant white men? They certainly had, and they deserve, and doubtless will receive, and hearty approval of the liberal minded Democracy.

Now, how does this conduct address itself to those who believe that "of one blood created, He all the nations of the earth?" We have no doubt that the thing in itself is a matter of trifling moment, and so far as it affected the little girl, might be permitted to pass without comment. But as an evidence of the spirit of narrow minded bigotry, ignorance and prejudice, which inspired the men who have charge of the educational interests of St. Thomas township, it deserves to be held up to the scorn and contempt of all liberal minded human beings, be they white or black. These fellows should know that this community despises them for what they have done. If there ever was a time, among us, when such unjust discrimination could be made against colored children, and we do not believe there ever was, it cannot be done now. Democrats as well as Republicans, we hope, desire to be fair and just to the colored race, and mean to give it encouragement and help, instead of injustice and insult.

But these School Directors do not represent their township. They have brought shame and odium upon it, which should only attach to themselves. It would be but just to themselves if the citizens openly disavowed their action, and declared themselves in favor of the golden rule, even in the case of a person so insignificant as this little colored girl.

President Johnson has still one week of his Presidential term to live, after which he will retire to private life, the poetical refuge of all great men weighed down by the cares and responsibilities of office. This longing of public men for the quiet and contentment of private life is one of the fictions which has been indulged in so long that many have come to believe it. But there is rarely anything in it. Few persons step down from positions of high and commanding influence with half the alacrity that they exercised in reaching them, and Johnson would love nothing in this world so much as a new lease of the power which he has so outrageously abused. In four short years he has swung around the entire circle of his political friends and enemies. Those who elevated him to the Vice Presidency, believing him to be an incorruptible patriot, his treason, his ingratitude and his debaucheries have converted into his most resolute political enemies; while those whose hostility to the Government and sympathy with traitors made them resist his election, are now his most cherished friends. Traitors, murderers, counterfeiters, forgers and thieves will regret that his term of office has reached its constitutional limit. They have reason for so doing. He always interposed his ill used power between them and justice, and such as he could not wholly screen from the officers of the law he pardoned. The last few months of his term has been wholly devoted to his friends, who have rejoiced in a general jail delivery. It might be inferred from this that he possessed the virtue of forgiveness, but he does not. He is cruel and vindictive in a surprising degree, and hates both Houses of Congress, who have interfered with his nefarious plans, with a perfect hatred. Well, let him go. The country has lived through the dangers he would have brought upon it. He is powerless to harm it now. A wiser and a better takes his place, and he will sink into forgetfulness and oblivion, a fitting punishment to one whose fiercest ambition is power and notoriety. Exit Moses.