The Sumter watchman. [volume] (Sumterville, S.C.) 1855-1881, 1870-08-24
DEVOTED TO LITERATURE, MORALITY AND GENERAL NTEII

topics OK discussion, 10 obtain the
support and confidence Of the people
and so to restore the Government to its
purity.
The policy of the Register would
defeat this purpose. It's only effect
would be to keep up at the South an
agitation which is alike hurtfal to
Southern industry and to the Demo
cratic party. Hence its articles are
quoted as Radical campaign material
and hence our assertion that as long as
1t makes votes against rs instead of for
US, aud is in direct antagonism to the
great Democratic newspapers of the
country, it can not lsgitimately claim
to be more than organizer of new party
with new name outside of the organ.
ization which we recognize as Demo
cratic and National.
In it's issue of Monday last, the Cou-
rier Journal follows this by an able
editorial, in which it declares:
The negro has been made freeman,
. citizen, and voter, all in apite of our
bravest and most defiant opposition. So
far serious political revolution, brought
about in an incredible short space of
time, has been accomplished. No one
proposes to remand the blacks to a state
of slavery; and we think We have made
it plain that tho repeal of the Fifteenth
Amendment is as impraoticable as the
repeal Of tho Thirteenth. The slave is
free man. The free man is citizen.
The citizen is voter. These are facts
which cannot be denied, and which will
not be got rid of short of revolution,
hardly less long and bloody, and perhaps
longer and bloodier, than that to which
each in detail owes it's existence. Tho
issue before the country is not the
repeal of the Fifteenth Amendment any
moro than the repeal of the Thirteenth
Amendment. The issue before tho
country, but subject to the action of an
already existing Congress, is Mr.. Sum
ner's bill equalizing by law the social
intercourse as we'll as the political
relations Of all sorts and conditions of
men:
We propose therefore to put ourselves
on a peace footing, not upon war
footing. In those of tho Southern
States which have been suffered to
resume the control of their own affairs,
the negro has not proven himself a
dangerous political element. In Mary.
laud, kentucky, Virginia and Tennessee G
he is not seriously felt as a pressure
on the ballot box. We are so strong
in all these States, and will be equally
strong in every other which may be
once rid of Federal inter modelling, that
we can afford to ignore the negro as a
contending force. Lot us cease to
disturb ourselves about threatened
supremacy toward which he contributes
nothing, and consider him as an indus-
trial agent, holding an intimate and
practical relation toward our households
and our farms. Let US allay public
feeling against him. Let US give him
every civil right which can add to his
bodily comfort and enjoyment, to his
peace of mind, and, to his
future prospects. Let us provide him
instruction, and educate and elevate
him, trusting to tho good effects of
good works and kind Offices, to the
Improvement which comes from instruc-
tion, to tho blessed influence of peace,
and to the mercy and the wisdom Of
that God who is the Founder and the
Architect of government, aud the
Father and Protector Of he people,
Then when bold Innovations upon the
instincts of human nature (however per-
verted) and Obstructive of society chow.
ever artificial, are put forward by vision.
airy interpreters of the rights of man, we
shall be able to appeal to the practical
common sense of the intelligence of
the country, which rules it after all,
and say to it, "You can point to- moth
ing which either justiies your haste or
your violence" and thus, by the free
agency Of mind over muscle, and sense
over sinew, and Christian statesman
ship over brutal, warliko spirit OF
mere destructiveness, be able not only
to "sweep radicalism from the face Of
tho land" but also to preserve both law
and order, and to protect those scattered
homes of widows and orphans, which no
less than the myriads of silent and
unmarked graves, everywhere appeal!
to US in behalf Of tho poor and st.ug-
Cling, and defensclcss women and chill
drcn of the Confederate dead.
The man who says that this good
counsel is treason to tho Democratic
party; proclaims himself traitor to all
that is holy in the past and hopeful in
the future.