The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1868-07-28
SPIRIT OF THE PRESS.
RDIroRIAL OPINIONS or TIE bsAOINe JoURNAbs
UPON CURRENT ToPICs-CoMPILBD EVERY
BAY FOB THE EVENING TELEGRAPH.
The Revival of a Bad Spirit.

From the ~ r. EUentsl0 roSt.
Since the publication of General Blair's first
letter and his nomination as Democratic can
didate for the Vice Presid, ncy, there has been
q sudden and notable increase in the vehe-
mence, and violent language, of the Southern
Democratic press, and of Democratic speakers
In the Southern States. Some OF the language
we read now in Southern Democratic newspa-
pers reminds one of the days just before 1861,
when Yancey and his companions were "fring
the Southern heart" or of the period during
the Rebellion, when scolding at the Yankees
was thought by the writers and speakers for
the Rebel cause to be so good means of keep
ing up the spirits of the Rebel army that even
MIR. Davis adopted it.
Mr.. Toombs, in Atlanta, at a Democratic
ratification meeting, denounced the Republl-
can party as ''the men who for the last six
years have shamed human nature itself, and
violated every principle of virtue and TRUTH"
and he did not scruple to declare that "as
the late war was produced by defeated De-
mooracy in 1S60,'' so the country should have
no peace until it restored the Democratic
party to power. Governor Vance, of North
Carolina, said in Richmond, on his return
from the New York Convention, che could
talk more familiarly of the wrongs of the
South here than at the North" he declared
himself still "a Rebel, and argued at length
that "what the COnfederacy fought for would
be won by the election of Seymour and Blair"
So General Wise said at Richmond, che did
not care for the platform. 1t told lie in its
first resolution. 1t said secession was dead;
that was not so; secession was more alive than
ever. He supported the nominees, and espe-
cially Blair, because he had declared that he
would assume military power"
So, too, Wade Hampton, but lately the ad-
vocate of negro suffrage, declared after the
Convention that only the white vote shodld be
counted in the Presidential election; and all
over the Southern States the cry of "a white
mans government" begins to be heard again,
and that in quarters where, before the Demo-
cratic platform was announced and the letter
of Blair was circulated, men were beginning
to adapt themselves to what Is called 'the
new order of things" and to urge each other
to make the best of what they did not like.
1t is not six weeks since Democratic papers
in Georgia and other Southern States spoke
with qualification of democratic negroes, 1"
and expressed the belief that with a sensible
policy the blacks would, to a great extent,
support the Democratic ticket. But now the
cry is again for ''a white mans government" +"
General Blair and the Convention which nomi-
mated him appear to have ''fred the Southern
heart" anew; and to such degree that the
Richmond Dispatch thinks it polite, and in
censonance with the spirit of the war, to print
such paragraph as this:-
''Shall we never have done with that old
We suppose that there have been twenty thou
sand dollars worth of teegra ms sent over the
Atlantic Cable concerning his whereabouts and
his dongs. He is certainly king the most OF
his little victories. IL is as Carly lie sayS-the
world will have its heroes; and if lhere are no
real ones, IL worships snam ones FaTragut Is
the nearest approach To a nero mat the Federal
navy turned out during the late war, a I'D so he
has to stand for the genuine article"
1t seems a pity that the evil spirit which
misled the Southern people into Rebellion
should appear again, and with all its viru
lence. There was reason to hope, of late, tha
sensible and moderate counsels would prevail
there, and that the Democratic leaders, many
of whom favored the nomination of Mr.. Chase
in the New York Convention, would see the
Importance of accepting some questions as
settled, and going on to other matters of gene
raj Importance.
1t would seem that the letter of Mr.. Blai
and the action of the New York Convention
worked upon these men like hugle blast upor
an old war-horse; they fang away at once al
peaceful notions, and began to cry out anew
the old war-cry of a "white mans govern
ment." Before, they were ready to accep
reconstruction as an accomplished fact; ever
the World consented to that, and showed il
elaborate articles that to do otherwise, to re
fuse to accept reconstruction, would be 70
Southern Democrats to stultify themselves
But now, every Southern Democratic speake
and writer demands that the reconstruction
acts shall be overturned.
Every patriotic man must lament to see the
revival of this spirit of hatred, prescription
and defiance of law-for which the Democratic
leaders are respOnsibe and no man who de-
sires to see reconstruction settled and tn,
country at rest, but will see the Importance o
defeating, by large majority, that party
which is thus the inspirer of disorder, and th
hope of the lawless and violent.
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