The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1869-12-16
THE BEAUTIES OF RADICAL RULE.
Testimony of an Old Abolitionist.-I;x-
/ tracts from a Letter by Parker PiIIsbury.

THE BEAUTIES OF RADICAL RULE.
Testimony of an Old Abolitionist.-1;x-
tracts from Letter by Parker PilIsbury.
RECONSTRUCTION a FAILURE.
WASHINGTON, D. c. Oct. 1869.
To the Editors Of the Independent:
All who travel in the Southern
States since the war can learn lessons
if they will, unknown TO them before.
Many have reported their impressions
10 you already but all is not yet told.
l am afraid the worstis yet unknown.
indeed, I think the North knows less
of the actual South to-day than almost
any other portion of the globe. Re-
publicanism bears rule there, and re-
ports itself to please itself. Counter
authorities especially from Democrat
ic sources, are cast aside as unworthy
of confidence, as no doubt they often
are. But it is time one thing was
told. and believed, too, everywhere;
and that is that reconstruction, so far,
is failure. 1t is failure. From the
sole of its foot to its head, if it have
any head, there is no soundness in it,
none whatever. 1t began where it
should have left off, with political Or
carnations, with suffrage and sover-
eighty when the first lessons in civil
ization had not been learned, had not
been taught, and have not yet been
taught. But party supremacy requir-
ed the measure, and it was adopted,
against all dictates of genuine states
lnanship, as well as the demands of
justice and humanity. And hence its
failure, as could not but have been ex-
pected.
ABoLITIoNIsTs DID NOT ABOLISH sLA-
VERY.
Slavery was not abolished by the
Abolitionists. Still less was it
abolished by the Republican party.
LII spirit and power, it survives even
the war. with all its woes. Like
everything else at the South, it is q
ruin but it is there. Both master and
slave are there. And more at war
than ever before. And so far the
Northern element infused between
them, instead of reconciling, has only
made matters worse. The Northern
Republican hates the master, but does
not love the slave. The North never
loved the negro race better than did
the South. IL did not abolish the
slave system in form for the sake of
| the victims, nor at all until driven to
the measure by the stern eXigency of
military necessity for self preservation
| So far as any sense of justice and hui
manity ever were intended, it was
manifest enough that the Republican
party would have continued slavery
unto this day, and unto the judgment
4 day, had not the preservation of the
nationality imperiously ordered and
compelled otherwise.
NORTHERN VILLAINS IN THE SOUTH.
| would that Mr.. Garrison and
4 Wendell Phillips could spend one
month in the cotton-fields and rice
swamps of the Corolinas and Georgia.
| have seen only the Atlantic States
but these are the worst. They would
soon see that suffrage is not the one
thing needful for the emancipated
slaves, men nor women, however, it
might have been for the interests of
the party and, above all things, un-
less thai suffrage were directed by a
far other than the present politicians
there.
For it must be said that far the
PAL vi U1C 4NOI Ii IACII ch1 s1lC
4 South have partaken in the general
moral and political corruption that
ruled there so long. That ruled until
the present ruin followed. Many
have undertaken to cultivate the lands
by hiring the former slaves by paying
them wages. But in nine instances
out of every ten they have failed al
together, though paying wages OIL
which it is hardly possible the labor.
er can live without begging or stealing
both of which are practiced there tt
a frigh tful extent. Almost every
man who employs any considerable
number of hands keeps little store
of cheap groceries and provisions
and pay them out of it. And usually
the weeks work is all taken up, sc
that scarcely one in hundred cal
improve his condition under the order
of things.