A blog about living in Aberdeen, New Jersey.

Monday, April 5, 2010

African Americans in the Matawan Journal - 4 April 1885

Below is the third in my occasional series on African Americans mentioned in old editions of The Matawan Journal. Today's article, from a paper published 125 years ago this week, reveals that a local employer forced his staff to vote for particular candidates who opposed the Incorporation Doctrine. The Federal Courts wouldn't use the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to apply the Bill of Rights against the states for another forty years.

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Talk about negro Slavery in the South and the spirit of coercion of planters upon the negroes! The same spirit lives here in Matawan. We know one man who had to vote against incorporation because he was likely to lose his place if he did not vote the ticket his boss gave him. How can it be expected that such mean spirited men would be in favor of improvement?

Matawan Journal, 4 April 1885, page 2 column 4

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