The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1869-12-30
From the fernando Press
JAMES II. AM.CORN.

No citizen of Mississippi has ever occupied
position fraught with such power Of good
or evil TO the State as Gen. Alcorn. The
prerogatlves of the Governor are greatly
enlarged by the new Constitution, but the
legal powers of Governor Alcorn as defined
by the organic law will be small in compa-
rison with the moral weight of his anama-
lous political position. Himself one of the
ablest, wealthiest and most distinguished of
the white men of the State, he may be said
to have been called to his present position
by the unanimous voice of the blacks against
the unanimous voice of the whites since the
insignificant white vote which he obtained
was perhaps offset by the equally insignifi-
cant black one cast for his opponent. 1t is
hardly too much to say that he is the only
old citizen of the State of any POLITICAL
prominence who has fully identified himself
with the Republican party and that he is
the only one who stands any chance OF
maintaining himself in the future. The
half dozen of fourthrate lawyers who have
affiliated with his party for the purpose of
obtaining seats in Congress or upon the
Bench. and the little nest of officials in each
county who have called themselves Radicals
In order that they might hold at the hands
of the negroes the Offices which they could
never hope to win from the whites will
soon sink to their natural level and in the
speedy future will only be remembered as
political drift-wood that showed how high
the flood ofignorance and passion ran.
The Legislature soon to assemble will
certainly be the most ignorant deliberative
body that ever convened in the State. There
will not be in both houses combined twenty
members of the dominant party who can
DRAFT the simplest bill or explain its legal
bearings when enacted into law. The in
fluence of such man as Alcorn over such
body, must be immense. How shall that
influence be exerted? Will it soothe or
will il inflame the angry passions of the late
political struggle? The people of the State
stand practically divided into the dan
gerous of all divisions white mans and
black mans party. While they stand con-
fronting and glaring at each other, Alcorn
alone perhaps cambridge the yawning chasm.
We would not ask him to bestray the party
who elected him-and least of all would we
have him prove false to the negroes; but
we would implore him to save US from the
corruptiOns OF Radicalism as in Tennessee,
its yindictiveness in South Carolina and its
bloody carnage in Arkansas. He must
know that no superiority of brute numbers
can long sustain in power a party which
combines malice with ignorance. We would
ask him therefore, to try and win to his adj
ministration the confidence and support of
the liberal and fair-minded intelligence of
the State. There are thousands of good men
who voted with great regret against General
Alcorn, solely because of the company he
was in, and while they could not approve
they would not abuse him. In the last pub
liShed address which he issued to the people
of the State he denounced as false and SLAM
derous the insinuatiOD that his course had
been prompted by personal ambition or
vindietiveness to his ancient foes the Demo-
cratic party of the State. While he thus
protests the purity of his own motives will
he not concede equal purity to those of his
opponents? We know that torrents ofabuse
have been heaped upon him and grievous
charges laid to his door. Can he rise supe-
rior TO the resentment which SANDER natu-
rally prompts? If so he will be truly great.
But if this is asking too much we would re-
mind him that he can find in every CO UNITY
warm personal friends who while they voted
against him never Joined in this abuse.
Sarely if he will call around him such men
as Governor Clark and Watson and Barr
and j. I. Harrison and Fisher and Yerger,
he might find as wise cOnsellers and as fit
ting recipients of the honors of the State as
he is likely to obtain among the Mygatt's,
Castello's. etc, who will fawn around his
chair and ''bend the pregnant hinges of the
knee that thrift may follow fawning."