Bedford inquirer. [volume] (Bedford, Pa.) 1857-1884, 1865-07-21

eiS DbWEA thn - lAsEa'eo>CA1 DN a N4NOELu-
ern voter exercising similar right, is, very
surely, a somewhat superfuous stretch Of
clemency.
And what manner of men, I pray YOU,
are those whom we propose thus TO select
from among their fellows-granting them
powers unknown TO democracy, investing
| them with privileges of an oligarchical char
acter? It is ungenerous to speak harshly
Of vanquished foe, especially of one who
has shown courage and eonstaHcy worthy of
/ the noblest cause; but the truth is the truth.
and is ever ftly spoken They are men
whose terrible misfortune it has been to be
! born and bred under n system the most Cruz
el and denoraIizing the world ever saw. The
wisest Of those who have been subjected to
such a surrounding have confessed its evil
power. There must doubtless, said JEFF
ferson in his Notes Oh Virginia. be an I'M
happy influences on the manners Of our peo-
pie, produced by the existence of Slavery
among us. The whole commerce between
master and slave is a perpetual exercise of
the most bolsterous passions-the most un-
remltting despotism on one part, and degra-
! ding submissions on the other. =
The man must be prodigy who can retain
his manners and his morals under such cir
/ cImstances. Notes, d. 270.l
| These are the habitual results of the sys-
| tenn. To what incredible excesses its occa-
sional outburst may run we have frightful
evidence daily coming before us; schemes of
| wholesale incendiarism, involving deaths by
thousand of women and children schemes
| to poison, by the malignant virus of the yell
low fever, an entire community deliberate
| plans to destroy prisoners Of war by insult
| ferable hardslips and slow suffering plots,
too successful alas to shroud a nation in
mourning by assassination.
Many honorable exceptions no doubt there
are, In whom native virtue resists daily
temptation. Such exceptions are to be
found in all communities, no matter how
pernicious the surroundings But in deei-
ding National questions we must be govern
ed by the rule, not by the exceptions.
The Southern whites subdivide into three
classes: The shareholders proper, many of
whom are excluded from pardon by the
Proclamation of Amnesty; the poor whites
and what may be called the yeomen Of the
South-of which last our country feels that
her worthy President is a noble type, and of
which we may regard stout-hearted ParSOn
Brownlow as a clerical example.
1T this last class, whence have come the
sturdlest Union men in Seeessiondom, con-
stituted, like the mechanic of New England
or the farmer of the West, a large proper
ton OF the population, we might hope that
1t would leayen and redeem the extremes of
society around it. But it Is found sparse
and IN inconsiderable numbers, except, per-
haps, In Eastern tennessee and the northern
portion of North Carolina. The poor
whites, of whom the clay eating pine lander
OF Georgia and other Gulf States is the
type, far outnumber them. Of this last
class Mrs. Fanny Kemble, in that wonderful
book of hers, Journal of Residence on a
68agsrAFsn 6sgrF5HJ Jlantas19n s glyes bF9m personal %
are, / suppose, she says ''the most de-
graded race of human beings claiming an
Anglo Saxon origin that can be found on the
face of the earth-flthy lazy, ignorant,
brutal proud, penniless savages, without
one of the nobler attributes that have been
found occasionally allied to the vices of saw
age nature. They own no slaves, for they
are, almost without exception, abjectly poor;
they viii not work, for that, as they conceive
would reduce them to an equality with the
abhorred negroes; they squat and steal and
starve on the outskirts of this lowest of all
civilized societies, and their countenanees
bear witness to the squalor OF their condl-
ton and the utter degradation of their ma
lures. Journal, p, l46.
| have often encountered this class. /
saw many OF them last year while visiting,
as member of Government commission,
some of the Southern States. Labor degra-
ded before their eyes has extinquished with
in them all respect for industry, all ambi-
ton, all honorable exertion, to improve their
condition. When last | had the pleasure
of seeing you at Nashville, / met there in
the Office Of gentleman charged with the
duty of issuing transportation and rations to
INDECENT persons, black and white, a notable
example of this strange class. He was a
Rebel deserter a rough, dirty, uncouth
specimen of humanity-tall, stout and wiry-
lookingi rude and abruptin speech and bear
ing, and clothed in tattered homespun. In
no civil tone he demanded rations. When
informed that all rations applicable to such
a purpose We're exhausted, he broke forth
wv hat am | to do then2 How am to get
homer
You can have no difficulty was the re-
ply. 1t is but fifteen or eighteen hours
down the river lthe Cumberland, ''by
you transportation you can work your
way.
'sWork my way I" with a seowl of angry
contempt, | never did stroke of work
since was born, and never expect to, till
my dying day.
The agent replied quietly They will
give you all you want to eat on board if you
help them to wood =
Garry wood he retorted with an oath
"Wheheyer they ask me to carry wood, III
tell them they may set me ON shore L d
rather starYe for week than work for an
hour; | don't want to live In world that |
can make a living out of without work.
Is it for men like that, ignorant, illterate,
viclous-fit for no decent employment on
earth except manual labor, and spurnlng dH
labor as degradation--is it in favor of such
insolent swaggerers that we are to disfran-
chise the humble, quiet, hard working ne
gro? Are the votes of three such men as
Stanton or Seward, Sumner or Garrison,
Grant or Sherman to be neutralized by the
ballot of one such worthless barbarian?
Are there not breakers ahead? To such
an issue as that may not the late tentatives
at reconstruction, how faithfully soeyer con-
ceNed end intended for good, practically
tend?
The duty Of the United States to guaran-
tee 70 every State in the Union republican
form of government is as sacred as the duty
to protect each of them from invasion Is
that duty duly fulfilled when, with the pow
er of prevention in our own hands, we suffer
the white voter in the least loyal, the least
intelligent and the least industrious section
70 IL