The "Traveller" has all along maintained, in spite of the protests of
the Northern doughfaces who worship the ex-Confederate chiefs, that the
conciliatory profession of Hampton & Co. is a malicious snare, and the
fraternal disposition attributed to their followers is a delusion. As
the campaign at the South advances, the truth begins to develop, and
even the Northern conciliators begin to acknowledge it. The following
information comes in the form of a Washington despatch to one of the
most obedient newspaper servants of the Southern chieftains:--
_Terrorism in South Carolina._
Information from Abbeville District, in South Carolina, is to the effect
that Democrats have already begun a system of terrorism to prevent
Republicans from organizing for political purposes. Several of the local
papers of that section are charging that Republicans of that vicinity
have completed a ticket, and that it is already being circulated
secretly among colored voters, and upon this curious charge an attempt
is being made to stir up white citizens to take this matter in hand, and
act in time, and vigorously. In Edgefield District, one of the local
newspapers, in commenting upon this reported secret action on the part
of the Republicans, says that something is feared in Edgefield County,
and upon this urges that two Republicans, who are supposed to be leaders
in this movement, should, if they dared to lift their heads or fingers
in political machinations, be seized and hung. To use its own words:
"Yes, we mean exactly what we say. If those named, and others, ever dare
to inaugurate political schemes in Edgefield again, let us hang them.
Not only our own self-respect, but our safety demands it, and that
without masks or disguise."
The newspaper quoted is the Edgefield "Advertiser," which contains a
long article giving the names of those Republicans against whom it
tries to incite the mob. The Abbeville "Medium" joins in the cry against
the Republicans, who are exercising their common rights, and advises the
Democrats to "throw out pickets" in order to suppress the movement. What
all this talk means everybody knows, and the experience of the Southern
Republicans shows them what they are to expect if they dare to exercise
their privileges as citizens. Extraordinary emphasis is given to this
revival of Ku-Kluxism, by the recollection that it is just two years
since the horrors of the Hamburg massacre were enacted, on the very
ground where this movement finds its inspiration, under the patronage of
one who now holds a seat in the United States Senate; and that it is
more than one year since the State government of South Carolina was
surrendered to Hampton with the assurance that everybody's rights would
be protected, and that fraternal relations would be maintained as a
result of the conciliatory policy. This melancholy failure of all
efforts to compromise with the perfidious ex-Confederates, in South
Carolina, is only one in a score of lessons, by which the North has
blindly failed to profit. The assassins, who slaughtered the colored
Republicans, at Hamburg, are still at large, and ready for more bloody
work: and Hampton sits calmly at the head of affairs in his State,
deluding the people of the North with promises which he never intends to
fulfil. It would seem to be about time for us to recall the language of
the Cincinnati platform, declaring it to be "the solemn obligation of
the legislative and executive departments of the government" to "secure
to every citizen complete liberty and exact equality in the exercise of
all civil, political, and public rights." This language was enforced by
the imperative demand for "a Congress and a chief executive whose
courage and fidelity to these duties shall not falter until these
results are placed beyond dispute or recall." It is useless to deny that
the signs are ominous in the South. The time seems to have arrived for
testing the courage and fidelity of those whom the Republican party
called to the duty of protecting the rights of citizenship, and the
capability of Republican institutions for the plainest purposes and
requirements of a government.
The Portland "Advertiser," a disgruntled sheet of Republican
antecedents, says President Hayes has effected a "permanent settlement
of the Southern question." That depends. He has secured Democratic
ascendency in every Southern State. He has wiped out the Republican
party of the South. He has rewarded bull-dozers instead of punishing
them for their crimes. He has emasculated the United States flag so that
it is no longer the symbol of protection to the newly enfranchised race.
But the one thing which would compensate in some degree for these acts,
he has not been able to do; viz., make loyal men of the unreconstructed
ex-rebels. These are just as bitter, venomous, and implacable to-day as
on the day when Gen. Grant's term of office expired. One man, and one
only, so far as we know, has been changed by the "new departure," and
that man is now a Cabinet officer. Upon the same terms even the Chisholm
assassins might be conciliated.--_Concord Monitor_.
The safest thing to do with the Southern claims of all kinds is to
reject them promptly. If the entire batch should be ruled out, some
deserving persons might suffer, but the country would be saved the cost
of enriching a good many scores of rascally rebels. The claims now on
file foot up about three hundred millions of dollars, and we venture to
say that not half a million of this amount is honestly due to the
claimants.--_Philadelphia Bulletin_.
The lynching of the colored man, Walker Denning, in the town of
Riverside, Texas, appears to have been an unusually brutal and
unjustifiable act, even for Texas. The girl with whom he eloped admitted
to the reporter of a Texas paper that she prompted his course, Denning
at first strongly objecting and advising her to stay at home. The
spectacle of twenty armed men firing buck-shot into a chained and
helpless victim at such close range that his clothing was set on fire,
horrifies us with its unnecessary savagery. But the revelation is no
new one. We have already had proof upon proof that under "conciliation"
there is no law, justice, nor mercy for the unfortunate colored people
of the South: and this merely adds another to the long list of
butcheries, and worse than Turkish barbarities, of which the
blood-thirsty rebel element have been guilty.--_Traveller_.
Henrietta Wood, a colored woman, of Cincinnati, has recovered two
thousand five hundred dollars damages against ex-Sheriff Ward, of
Campbell County, Kentucky, for unlawful duress and abduction. In 1853,
when living in Cincinnati, she was enticed over the river to Kentucky,
and delivered over to Ward, who kept her as a slave seven months, when
he disposed of her to a slave-trader. She was sold South, and remained
fifteen years in slavery. She returned to Cincinnati after the close of
the war, and commenced the action which has just terminated in her
favor.
The "Macon (Ga.) Telegraph" demands that the Southern people shall be
paid for their emancipated slaves. Next they will probably want pay, at
hotel rates, for the entertainment of Union prisoners during the
war.--_Philadelphia Press_.
The colored Republicans in Somerville County, South Carolina, carried
the local election recently by a large majority, but the Democrats
managed to count them out, on the ground that it wouldn't do for the
Republicans to carry the first election of the season.--_Journal_.
And this right under the much-praised administrative system of Wade
Hampton, who, with Gordon, Lamar, Stephens, Hill, and the rest of
the treasonable species, constitutes the organic beau-ideal of
statesmanship. Turn the other cheek and let them slap it, Mr. Journal.
A SAD, TRUE STORY.--A letter from New Orleans to the "Philadelphia
Press" thus refers to the native Republicans of Louisiana:--
"The leaders were beset with dangers and difficulties such as have never
even been dreamed of in the North. One by one they have given their
life's blood in the cause. They have lain down their lives, true to the
flag. They have been thinned out by assassination and violence. Their
graves--the graves of the victims of Democratic outrage--are scattered
throughout the South. There are comparatively few of the living to tell
the tale. A large proportion of these, even, have been maimed and
crippled in the fight.
"They are to-day, as a rule, none the less true to the Republican faith.
The Southern Republican leaders have nothing to offer by way of
palliation or excuse. They have fallen one by one in the enemy's front.
The Republican masses have been massacred by wholesale; have been
murdered and outraged upon every occasion and in every manner. They have
been hunted as the beasts of the jungle. Their blood cries to Heaven
from every hillside, from every by-way, and from every bridle-path in
the South. There has been more of blood--_Republican blood_--that has
dyed the soil of Louisiana alone than all that has been shed in all of
the Indian wars of a quarter of a century. It has been shed, alas, in
vain. _The American people were not a nation. There was not, there is
not to-day, to their shame be it said, the power within the American
people, to protect the life, or avenge the murder of an American
citizen, within the American lines_."
We would crucify our extreme modesty and suggest to the above writer the
reason why "there is not to-day the power within the American people to
protect the life or avenge the murder of an American citizen." Is it not
because we, "the people," put their political power into the hands of
the commander-in-chief of our army, in trust for four years, who
betrayed that trust by the transfer of that power into the hands of a
contemptible knot of armed and defiant rebels, thus constituting a solid
South with which to rule the nation? And is it not because the said
commander-in-chief, at the demand of the said rebels in arms, packed up
his traps and withdrew our "federal bayonets" from the South, thus
giving them, in addition to _their_ State rule, _our_ national
supremacy, by further giving them two States with large Republican
majorities?
And furthermore, is it not because the loyal North did not arise as one
man and demand the impeachment of the traitor who bartered their
liberties for a _sham_ peace, taking rebel promises for pay which have
since been repudiated?
But the men who assisted the President in this nefarious business are
coming to their senses. In a speech a few days ago, at Toledo, O., the
Hon. Charles Foster, M. C. from Ohio, and a member of the political firm
of Matthews, Foster & Co., renounces the Southern policy of the
administration, which that firm helped to inaugurate, as follows:--
"I believed in and supported President Hayes in the policy of refusing
the use of force to sustain State governments. I believed in it as a
matter of principle, though his course can be sustained on the ground of
necessity. I had hoped that his policy of kindness and conciliation
would result in the formation of a public sentiment South that would
permit Republicans to exercise fully all of the political rights
guaranteed to them by the Constitution and the amendments thereto.
Knowing that there are a large number of the people South who are tired
of the Bourbon Democracy, I hoped that the President's course would
permit them the more easily to assert themselves in some form in
opposition to the Democracy. I see signs of a realization of this hope,
especially in the States of Tennessee, North Carolina, and Texas, but in
less permanent form than I had hoped. The President's policy has lost
him the sympathy of the great mass of his party. That he has
conscientiously done his duty as he saw it, there can be no question. No
matter whether the conventions indorse him or not, no man will rejoice
more than he over Republican success--North and South. While he was
beslavered with praise from the Southern Democracy, they seemed to be
laying broad and deep the foundations for a solid South. Upon the
attempt, through the Potter resolutions, to unseat the President, they,
with bare two exceptions, voted for it. They declined even to give an
opportunity to vote upon the Hale amendment, which would have permitted
an investigation into Democratic frauds. Jeff Davis makes as treasonable
speeches as those of 1861, and he receives the indorsement and approval
of a large proportion of the press and people. Out of one hundred
newspapers in Mississippi, ninety-five indorse and applaud Jeff Davis.
Mr. Singleton, of the same State, on the floor of the House of
Representatives, declared 'his highest allegiance to be due to his
State, both in peace and in war.'
"By the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment, the political power of the
South in the Electoral College and the House of Representatives, was
increased about forty per cent. The Republican party to-day can poll, if
permitted to do so, forty per cent. of the vote of the South. Yet, in
the coming elections, I do not believe that we can carry one in five of
the districts that we know to be reliably Republican. By force and fraud
the political power of forty per cent. of their people is exercised
solely by the sixty per cent., thus making a solid Democratic South. The
right of the citizens of the several States to enjoy the privileges and
immunities of all the States is not respected in many localities. It is
said, condescendingly, that a Republican can live in the South without
trouble, if he will keep a padlock on his mouth.
"Now, my fellow-citizens, there can be no lasting peace until the
amendments to the Constitution are executed in good faith, both in
letter and spirit. A solid South is a constant menace to the peace of
the country. It means that the Constitutional amendments shall be
abrogated and repealed in spirit; it means the usurpation by the
majority of all the political power of one section of the country, and
with a fragment of the other section it enables the solid South,
inspired as it is by the spirit and the men who sought the overthrow of
the country, to now rule and control it; and yet they may be in a large
minority in the whole country. Such success, if it is submitted to,
means the payment of the rebel claims, the pensioning of rebel
soldiers, the payment for slaves lost in rebellion. I feel it my
especial duty to say that as long as the menace of the solid South
threatens the peace of the country, it is the duty of the North to be
united against it. I am desirous as any man can be that we shall get
away from sectional politics, but I cannot close my eyes to the danger
of a solid South. The advice I give is simply that ordinary prudence and
care be exercised. I repeat, that so long as the menace of a solid South
exists, it is the duty of the North to continue to meet it with 'the
most Greeks.'"
The New Orleans "Times" says: "While the North, with a lavish hand, is
soothing the fevered brow of the Southern suffering, she is building a
monument of gratitude which will be luminous forever." And the only
thing the North will ask in return for what it cheerfully gives is that
the monument shall bear the inscription, "Justice to all men."
Senator Chaffee, of Colorado, who is now at Saratoga, was asked if he
expected an early revival of business, and in response said: "Yes; a
beginning of a revival, because the excessively hard times and real
hunger have driven the lazy to work. I was at Hot Springs, Ark., not
long ago, and saw thousands of people going through to Texas. As many as
twelve hundred emigrants would go through Arkansas in a day. I talked to
many of them, and they told me that they had not generally twenty-five
dollars ahead of the railroad fare, but said that they desired to get a
piece of ground, raise potatoes, or anything, and be independent. That
is what will bring us up, and nothing else, every idle person to do
something at production.