The Opelousas journal. [volume] (Opelousas, La.) 1868-1878, 1868-08-01

so paradOX1cal and absurd as that Which
Radicals impute to Southern white peo-
Die. The latter are acknowledged as
kindred descended frsp the same Revo-
lutionary ancestors, reared up under the
same government, speaking the same
language, reading the same books, and
believing the same religion as the North,
and yet, when the Southern character is
drawn and daubed in a Radical paper,
one would conclude that Il son Of Syco-
rax sat for it-some misbegotten
ster equal in ogreisI malignity to Cali
ban or Ben. Butler himself.
Without going into the finer shadings
the more prominent traits of the South
crn character, as the Radicals daily
paint it, may be stated as follows:
The Southern whites are all disloyal,
and yet they are such valuable acquisi-
tons to the nation that they are to be
retained at any cost.
|. IIney are SO disloyal and dangerous
that they cannot be permitted to form
their own State governments and yet
they are SO loyal AMI obclient that they
Will submit to State governments erected
over their heads and at their expense
by negroes and carpct-baggers
They are such sAevd ins;nuatinc pol
iicians that they have to be d:sfrauchis-
ed and incapacir"ted fr holding office,
and even then it is at's the bureau and
the League can do TO keep them from
voting a majori y Ct the negroes. But,
strange to tel while they are in the ne
gro's power and doing their best to con-
ciliate him-wLi!e they are prisoners of
war to the Union, guarded by the sol
dlers of the Government and appealing
to the Union men Of tie North for their
confidence, these shrewd, dangerous
Southern fellows are actually murder
ing the negroes by hecatombs, and when
ever they find a Union man whose life
they spare, then they are sure to order
him out Of the country, burn his house
and poison his stock. Stranger still,
these inexplicable men have waited for
three years, since their surrender, and
did not begin these wholesale outrages
upon Union men until they had put a
rebel ticket" in the field to be elected,
if at all, by Union votes of the Northern
States! Since the nominations these
"rebel o~utrages' have increased, and are
still increasing at such a terrible rate
that no credulous man can read the Rad
ical accounts Of them without coming to
the conclusion that there won't be a
'loyal man" left in the South to vote for
Grant III November.
But the most singular trait which the
the Radicals have discovered in the
Southern character, is that upon which
they are now acting. Finding that the
white soldiers who garrison every town
in the South, are unable to quel the
disloval whites and protect the loyal
people from rebel vengeance, our Radi-
cal Congress has provided arms fer a
negro militia, and promises to withdraw
the impotent white army. It is expect
ed, of course, that the negro militia will
settle the white trash. The rebels will
not dare to rebel against their former
slaves. This peculiar weakness in the
rebel character was not discovered till
the beginning Of a Presidential canvass,
The rebels concealed it 50 well, that all
the Radicals considered white soldiers
sufficient safeguard against popular out
breaks from the close of the war till the
nomination of Grant. He Immediately
afterwards issued an order which said,
"Let us have peace" and, in obedience
to that order, Congress determined to
triae no longer with white soldiers, but
arm a couple of hundred negroes in
every Southern county, and to send them
along all the cedar paths and swamp
paths, to look for rebel outrages, aud to
hunt them to their homes, and to kill
and burn, and thus to make peace.
War for peace!-LouisviUe Courier.