Incendiary Harangue at Brandon.
“LET US HAVE PEACE.”
Henry Mayson, a colored man of this town, is reported by the Brandon Republican as having harangued a crowd in the Court House of Rankin county, on Saturday last, in the following style. He was accompanied by Capt. Fisher, a member of the Eggleston State Executive Committee and late of the Committee of Sixteen, who spoke on the same occasion. Mayson is, therefore, properly speaking a representative man, and a leader of his party. These facts give to his utterances unusual significance. We will recur to them. Why do the Eggleston leaders pass high-sounding resolutions renouncing Disfranchisement, and at the same time utter sentiments like these?
HENRY MAYSON.
Henry Mayson took the stand, and for nearly two hours poured forth such a sluice of vulgar, indecent, blasphemous and incendiary ribaldry as we have never heard from mortal lips before. He denounced the white people of Rankin as a set of “d—-d stinking rebels and scoundrels” – called Hiram Jones, Esq., “Old Jackall Jones” – called Dr. Catchings, “Old Kitchens” – spoke of the Irishmen of Jackson as the “d—-d blatherskite Irish” – of Gov. Humphreys as “Old Ben Humphreys, who was kicked out of the Governor’s mansion” – abused “Old Joe Davis,” “Old Mays,” “Old Brown,” “Old Jeff Davis,” and various other gentlemen, and asserted that he was sent here as an emissary and incendiary and that he was paid for coming. – He said Castello had sworn before the Reconstruction Committee that the negroes of this State were in favor of expelling the whites. He would not say that Castello spoke the truth, but he would say that he was for the government, and if the government said hang every d—-d rebel, from Jeff Davis down, he was in for doing it. He had no confidence in “Old Kitchens, or any other damned Rankin rebel,” and he was glad to know that “Bill McGowan had been placed over them to keep them straight.” He then told the negroes that the government had 30,000 acres of land within six miles of Brandon which they could get at a bit an acre, and advised them to stop working for white rebels. He said the rebel democrats, by their keenness, had got Grant and half the Republican party on their side, and the colored people should look out for themselves. His whole speech was one continued tirade of abuse, and “d—-d white rebel scoundrels” seemed to be a favorite expression. Everything was said that could be said to exasperate and inflame the white people present, and his object was evidently to get up a riot in order to have an excuse for arresting some of our prominent citizens. He boasted, time and again, that he was sent here as an emissary, that his fare was paid, and that he had the army at his back to protect him in the freedom of speech. It was a deliberate attempt to raise a riot, and had it not been for the counsels of some of our best men, who held back those who were boiling over with indignation, the object would have been accomplished, and many good men, both white and black, might now be mouldering in the grave. We call upon Gen. Ames to put a stop to these outrages.