THE TROUBLE OF THE SIXTIES.
The people of Alabama were plunged into the bloody, surging sea of
trouble in the sixties by the same extremist element in the South, which
has more than once ruled more desperately than wisely, and is, in times
of great emergency, scarcely conservative or sensible. The writer often
imagines he can hear some of these same old blustering members of the
ex-slave- and present office-holding hierarchy exciting the common
people back before the sixties with their now "moss-covered" harangues,
and wonders if some of the common herd could again be herded by these
same herdsmen and be driven into another conflict of "a poor man's fight
and a rich man's war."
If it had not been for the rash domination of this "rule or ruin" element
in the South at that time, there is no doubt but that "the war between the
States" could have been averted, with far greater advantage to the people
of this section.
The masses of the people of Alabama were not at heart secessionists, but
it is, as heretofore, unwritten truth that this state was seceded
fraudulently by the original "machine bosses" who dictated the seating
of the delegates in the "secession convention," and who ruthlessly
sacrificed the lives and property of the poor in a vain endeavor to add
to the coffers of the rich landlord by further enslaving humanity.
Reformers in Alabama are to-day fought hardest and persecuted most by
the sons of the class of men who fought the poor white man during the
late war and spoliated his meagre possessions, in order that the
shackles might be kept on the ankles of the black man so the rich
landlord could prolong his princely ways. Opposing the present movement
for universal industrial freedom are represented those who have
strangled Liberty at every stage of her growth, and who respect the
needs of the poor white man now, as little as they did the wants of the
poor slaves then.
The common people always fight all the battles in times of war, create
all the wealth in periods of peace; but, whether in the battle of blood
or the struggle for bread, they have never reaped a substantial benefit
from either contest. They have been engaged in a prolonged, though
varying struggle, all down the history of the ages, and greed and
avarice have always sapped their energies and sucked their life-blood.
Such is truly a too real recital of the actual experience of the Alabama
citizen ex-soldier, as he now is in the ranks of "the common masses of
the common people," battling for bread with about as much hope of
reaping a happy reward in this contest, as he had of winning a
soul-swelling victory in that of the sixties. How sad is the narrative
of the real life of the average Alabamian, who has always been loyal to
the political leaders of his native state, worshiping even at the shrine
of the name "Democracy," but, after years of toil, privation and
endurance, approaches the verge of eternity unable to bequeath a
heritage of neither full-fledged liberty nor free-titled land to
uneducated, homeless and hopeless children.