So the battle was joined, and the conflict waged hot and fierce.
That negroes--no matter how numerous they might be--should rule,
should bear sway and control in the county of Horsford, was
a thought not by any means to be endured. It was a blow on every
white cheek--an insult to every Caucasian heart. Men cursed wildly
when they thought of it. Women taunted them with cowardice for
permitting it. It was the one controlling and consuming thought of
the hour.
On the other hand, the colored people felt that it was necessary
for them to assert their newly-acquired rights if they expected to
retain them. So that both parties were influenced by the strongest
considerations which could possibly affect their action.
Red Wing was one of the points around which this contest raged the
hottest. Although it had never become a polling precinct, and was
a place of no mercantile importance, it was yet the center from
which radiated the spirit that animated the colored men of the most
populous district in the county. It was their place of meeting and
conference. Accustomed to regard their race as peculiarly dependent
upon the Divine aid because of the lowly position they had so long
occupied, they had become habituated to associate political and
religious interests. The helplessness of servitude left no room
for hope except through the trustfulness of faith. The generation
which saw slavery swept away, and they who have heard the tale of
deliverance from the lips of those who had been slaves, will never
cease to trace the hand of God visibly manifested in the events
culminating in liberty, or to regard the future of the freed race
as under the direct control of the Divine Being.
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