Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1867-05-15

. dtOE VVIASOm- w Hht inc NOrHhe erm
Political Crusade I'm the south
is Leading TO. .f5.i
lFrom the Charleston News, May elI
The subjoined letter was sent to Senator
Wilson while he was in our city. 1t, was
written by one of our old-time gentlemen,
and we have no doubt will, be read with
much interest: s ID ,4a %
sgs51 CHARLESTON, May 4 1867.
To the Hon. Henry Wilson, Of Massachusetts:
SIR-The accident which occasioned your
detention in this city to-day enables me to
address you a few words in relation to YOUR
harangue delivered yesterday. / beg to
observe that you did not deal so fairly with
the people of South Carolina as you are re-
ported to have done with the people of Vir-
ginia and North Carolina. In those States,
on the several occasions when you address,
ed the gatherings" citizen was permit
ted to reply to you, and the poison was thus
neutralized. Here you have devised the
plan of being announced through the pub
lie print and through the presiding officer
Of the meeting as an invited orator, and in
your introduction you claim to be here and
to speak sin compliance with invitations.7 =
In this way, and by these means, you ,se-
cured yourself from an answer which would
have exposed you as an emissary of the
New England anti-tree trade protective
tariff consolidation interest, whose leading
objects can only be subserved by diyiding g
the votes of the South. In other words,
by arraigning the negro against the South
ern whites, and on the side of the New
England manufacturers as their special
friends. -" -
You would have done no more than sheer
justice to us if you had offered to let us be
heard; and you would have contributed to
the enlightment of your colored audience
if you had suffered us to show them, how
directly antagonistic the interests of New
England are to their and our agricultural
pursuits, and how imperative it is upon
both blacks and whites in the South to get
rid of the "friendly hug" of New England
high taxation on US for their benefit, and
to be united aud stand firmly together in
demanding that the fruit of our labor shall
not be pocketed by Lowell, Lynn and Bos-
ton. r,
{ In the plentitude, too. of your conscien-
tiousness and candor, L pray you, in your
next address, enter little into the history
of the slave trade and tell your auditors the
truth-that your ancestors of Massachu-
setts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New
York and Pennsylvania, brought to this
country all the Africans who ever came
here, and they sold them to the people OF
the South. That they had all the ships and
sailors and the South had none. That the
trade was profitable to New England and
the North and that the money derived from
it has enabled them to outstrip the South
in wealth and prosperity, and then turn to
the descendants. of those Africans and say
to them, s'1he South is innocent of the
crime of enslaving you. Yankee eupidity
conceived, planned and executed the dia-
bolical work." --s-e~
A truth like this will be more useful in
reconciling these freedmen to their ''formeI
masters" if that were your purpose, than
all your advice to them to go to work and
raise cotton for the benefit of New En-
gland, to vote on the side of justice and
right, which you interpret to be the Yam
kee side of every question. And
then, again, sir, be just to yourself and
your past record, and say out boldly to
these people that they never would have
been liberated by the North if the South
could have been vanquished without
it. It was to overcome the South by the
use of a couple of hundred thousand oi
their bodies as breastworks (wben the South
had not that number all in alp that they
were promised liberty. and have now re-
ceived it. This, too, will help them to un-
derstand the kind of friendship your peo-
pie have for them. / will ask you, in con-
clusion, to invite discussion before the
freedmen, and in your presence, that they
may hear both sides, and you may have
full opportunity to reply to any one who
may see fiJ to answer you. l have the
honor to be yours, & w. I'll.