Sunbury American. [volume] (Sunbury, Pa.) 1848-1879, 1864-06-04
"RECONSTRCCrION.,
EXTRACT FROM A SPEECH OF
HON. THOMAS WILLIAMS,
OF PFNNSYIVANJ


Delicered IN tie House Of Representatives on
Saturday, April Esd, 1864.
But then there is difference of blood,
which renders conquest, and would, by the
same logic, render harmonious reunion,
impossible. Gentlemen on the other side
insist upon distinguishing, to their own
disadvantage, between the North and South
in this particular. They tell us that the
latter are nation of Cavaliers, while we
are only Puritans, or Quakers, or Pennsyl-
vania Dutch. Well, if it were true, and
they were twice as numerous as they are,
there is nothing in the facts of history to
warrant the servile reiteration here, of the
Richmond vaunt that they cannot be con-
quered, and will die in the last ditch, if
necessary. The little island of Great Brit
ain holds in bondage the Cet of Ireland
and the hundred millions of India, while
the Mantchou Tartar dominates over three
hundred and fifty millions of Chinese. Al
exander left the world as legacy to his
generals, and the Ottoman still sits upoE
the Bosphorus, and sways his scepter over
the imperial city of the East But it is not
true. Gentlemen on the other side are as
much out, think, in their ethnology as
in their history. There is no distinction of
blood, and none of habit or opinion, except
that which must prevail between higher
civilization and lower one. II they mean
that the men who colonized the South were
superior variety of the same stock, they
speak in ignorance of the fact that the New
England Pilgrams were the very highest
and purest type of the genuine Englishman,
abandoning high social positions and com
Portable homes, in the quest of liberty in
the New World, while the colonists of the
South were, with few exceptions, motley
and miscellaneous herd of mere adventures,
some flying nom their creditors at home,
and Others rejected by the stomach of the
Old World, and vomited per force upon our
shores. Ii they mean that they are of the
class which believes in the divine right of
kings, in the idea of an exclusive caste, and
that free society is failure, then they are
perhaps right. But these opinions we've
not imported by them. They are OF indi-
genous growth. They are the legitimate
offspring of the institution which turns the
man into u chattle, and makes him the pro-
perty of his fellow. They are the results Of
a social system that ignores the idea of Re
publican equality, and cannot possibly ex-
LIST, Us II never yet has existed, In any other
than an essentially arist0cratic State, which
u must necessarily engender, il IL does not
lind II ready'made, In this sense Of the
word they are indeed a sort of bastard Cav
aliers-with this difference howeyer-lhat
the type of the class was pattern OF knight
y faith, who honoTcd aud worshipped his
God, his lady, and bis king, while this, the
counterfeit pTesentiment, is u sort of iona
than Wild-half highwayman and half foot.
pad-TeJoleing In treason, murder, perjury,
and robbery, and signalzing his faith and
gallaAtFy BY lynching Methodist preachers,
sclling or bnFning negroes, oF hunting them
With bloodhounds, aud prosecuting helpless
and anonending iankee school ma'ms.--
And Yet there is not miserable sand, hllleT
Ia tbs caTolinas who does not claim, upon
Northern tesllnony, such a. NC lislsn to
here, llneal descent from tbs companions
81 the coHqueFoF, aad strut aud ssaggeg
With an sif osen mofs loIdly than the sans.
ellolle Aasqulso King, of tbs equally Am,
bilious aud pgsieniloas nali,e VI tbs Gold
Coast, sho, la eompleie dssiliaiioa VI al
nstheF integueasnts, bullans up his snps
iios nAa, and lgesds Chs dea,i "a : m.a -
sI IA 'hs 'sgineaial coat " bhslsA u