Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1870-02-04
Parties In the South,

negro support to the uncertainty of white
aid in the South The Republicans of the
North, who reaped the principal benefits
of party success, look ed rather to numbers
than to intelligence and responsibility in
their Southern alliances Making a safe
calculation upon human weakness, they
counted upon the purchase of few South
ern whites to their party embraces through
the facinations of political positions or
from the thirst of pecuniary advantages
Men before this have sold their birth
rights for mess of pottage and will do SO
again when the present generation has
passed away. That so few men of stand
ing, of prominence, Of character have
bowed down before the idols of Radical
power and success in our section is one Of
the brightest and most honorable features
of the memorable events connected with
our war and its results.
When the Republican party found it alb
soluteIy necessary in order to continue in
power, to prescribe and tyrannize over the
Southern whites and patronize and exalt
Southern blacks, they consented to aban-
don the hope of the sympathy and support
of the one in order to secure the friend
ship of the other. This decision has led
them on, step by step, to the most dlaboll-
cal and offensive legislative and political
prosecutions of the worth and intelligence
of our people, and collected around the
party affairs only the vilest and most mer-
cenary worshippers among the Southern
whites, These prescriptions have contin-
ued so long and have increased in harsh
ness to such an extent that only such Of
our people as are callous to insults and in
juries, and lost to every sense OF honor
and shame can form or continue any ALI
ance with their prosecutors. Dogs only
be they men or brutes, can continue to
lick the hand which smites them, and
worse than dogs are they who turn upon
and bite their companions for the paltry
and dirty crumbs which fall from the Radi-
cal tables.
AS parties are now constituted, the
Southern white people cannot be neutral,
and they cannot be Republicans. It is
useless for papers or speakers to talk of
compromise. Men cannot compromise
their integrity honor. Our people
cannot and never will tamper with Radi-
calism. Honesty and truth alike forbid.
Principle and policy alike unite to prevent
it. Those who through ignorance or fear
were deceived into the support of that
party are repenting of their action, and
brushing the foul dust from their shoes.
Southern men cannot remain in the party
and maintain the respect Of their neigh
bors or themselves; for, says the Richmond
Enquirer upon this question, "the very
pith and marrow of the Republican party
is its conquest Of the South. It's brief histo-
ry is the history of the crusade of the past
ten years to break the power of the South
and to run the ploughshare over our de-
molished institutions. You take the heart
out of Republicanism or Radicalism when
you eliminate the war upon the South
the conflict in the Wilderness-the bloody
heights of Gettysburg-the fall of Vicks-
burg-the defeat at Atlanta-the flight
from Petersburg Emancipation Proc
lamation-the 18th amendment to the Fed
eral Constitution-the 14th amendment
the Sherman-Shellabarge bill-the parti-
ton of Virginia-the Bayne-Underwood
Convention-the rule of Terry and Candy
the career of Butler-the Drake amend
ments-the iron-clad oath-the sweeping
removal of all our State officers-the story
of Tennessee-the broken faith with Geor-
gia-the plumber of North and South Car
olina-the treatment of Mississippi with
her Senator ReveD-and the awful, pitia-
bic humiliation of the Southern States
.ich are ut this moment at the mercy of
burnings, the piLLdge, the devastation of the
war-the march of Sherman-and the ride
of Sheridan. This is an epitome of the
history of the Republican party. Outside
of that they may have run up an enormous
debt-they may have destroyed the ma
tional shipping-they may have doubled
the prices of the necessaries of life-they
may have wrung in one year from Virginia
alone nearly three million dollars on her
tobacco ; but it is the aCar-record and the
IYeconS7uctiOn-record of the Republican
party that constitutes nine-tenths of its
biography. It is this war-record and this
construction-record that stands out in
any conception of the party just as the In
QUESTION, and the war in the Low Coun-
tries, and the Duke of Alva are the chief
images in any idea we have of Philip the
Second of Spain.
obviously, then, again, there is some
thing absolutely shocking in one of us
here taking up Republicanism as q faith.
1t would be as if the family of poor Mum
ford should become the greatest admirers
OF General Butler. It would be as if the
women of New Orleans had stepped forward
to WOO his foul embraces. It would be
like the Lady Anne won at her murdered
lords requiem by the grim and CORY
hunchback.
"The proposition ia that ne sitting