The Sumter watchman. [volume] (Sumterville, S.C.) 1855-1881, 1870-03-16

| potIucat point OF VICE, 70 Ssety Nuo
Southern patriot. Tho present hour is
ono of deep humiliation to every South.
ern white man. 1t really would seem,
chat :he Molock of Northern despotism
--Radicalism- would have been satiated,
after devouring the whole wealth Of
the South, aud degrading her to gov.
ernment in which she has no control (;
but in the elevation Of the Degro to a
6rst position, and putting all political
and civil jurisdiction in his hands, has
caused tho humiliation and degradation
of the South to reach depth, which
is beyond the power of language to
fathom. One would have thought that,
freeing the negro, which, at one stroke.
removed from the South its chief basis
Of wcalth-the population Of her cur
reucy. which took every dollar from
her pocket, and emptied the treasury of
every bank-tLe march of soldiery
through her length and breadth, cap.
turing horses aud mules, stripping ber
citizens of their food, clothing and sill
yer plate, and burning the gin houses,
dwelling houses, and cotton, leaving
her in the most absolute penury, would
have so glutted the appetite for revenge.
that long before this, revolution of
feeling would have taken place, aud a
generous sympathy been awakened, aud
like Israel of old, when she had cruelty
treated Benjamin, would have been
found in tears for her misfortuncs. But
how bitter and unrelcnting must bo a
hatred, which, after perpetrating the
cruelest acts of war, in the heat of pas
sion, subjectiny the perpetrators to the
charge of barbarity, rather than to a
claim ofthe civilization of the nineteenth
century, should shock the scnsibilitics
Of the whole civilized world, by consign.
ing an equal, brave, and patriotic peo-
pie, in the calm, cool, aftcrthouyht aud
deliberation cf the present time, to a
cruelty worse than hcathcnism could
have devised. The negro, the former
slavc Of the South, whoSc color, physi-
cal structure, and mental development,
shows him to be the inferior of every
other type of humanity, and utterly in.
capable of the highest order of civiliza-
tion, aud among whom, when of pure
negro blood, not even Que exception of
great intellect can be found, even at
the North, where for years he has en-
joyed all the blessings Of education and
association, is advanced, not to equality,
but by numerical strength, to superior
position to the white man, and the
whole political power placed in his
hands; and the white man, whose col
or, physical conformation, rational in
stincts, and mental capabilities, make
him the superior Of all other grades OF
men, is put under his political control
and then, as though she feared the cx-
cape of the victim from her teeth and
claws, passes, "by hooh and by crooh,"
the fifteenth amendment to the consti.
tuition, by way Of perpetuating this liz
fanny to the last times.
"Action and reaction are equal and in
opposite directions" is an axiom as true
in governments as it is in physics. This
condition Of things cannot last always.
1t is as unnatural as it is cruel, as un-
reasonable as it is inhuman, aud contra.
diets, at once, the laws of civilization
and human development. Who can
suppose that that strange thipg-callcd
the Legislature Of South Carolna--a
mixture ofwhite, yellow and black, with
little reason and much nonsense, little
Judgment, and much stupidity, little
virtue, and much corruption, which can
not be compared to anything in the
heavens above, the earth beneath or the
waters under the carth-a hybrid, which
is neither fish, bird, nor beast, which,
like Ncbuchadnczzar's image, is part
metal aud part miry clay, can pcrpe'-
uatc its own existence for any number
of years ~ body that has lcgislated,
and lcgislatcd, until neither chicken or
pig is secure in the yard of honest
industry, and a crop is stolen before it
can be gathered from the field! a body,
which, by its legislation, has caused
rascality to rise to commanding pre-.
MUM, and honesty to sink below par-
which has made dishonesty strut in
boots and broad cloth, and truth and
honesty weep iu secret y body, which
is becoming as disgusting to the honest
and industrious negro, as it has been
for long time to tho white man. How
long can it pcrpctuatc itself?