The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1872-05-02

EAST MISSISSIPPI, April - 1S1z-
EDITORS CLARIoK-I hand you with this
a correspondence that has actually taken
place between an Honorable ofice-holder
of this section and myself:
HICKORY GROVE, Mss April II, 1872.
Mr.. WILLIAM
Dear Sir: have no personal acQuaint-
ance with you. but have been told by a
friend how / could get a letter to you
through Mr.. Jones. L write this and send
it.
L am one of the class you are pleased TO
term carpet-bagger, and whom you de-
nounce in your letters 10 THE CLARION. L
wish to be heard through the columns of
that paper, open TO you but not to me. 1
am Northern man. and served during the
war in the Federal army. L came down
here after the war, and being eligible
to office. was placed therein at an early day.
When l came South l bought me a farm
and began to become in fact Southern
man.. claim to be SO. am Republican
in politics, and would scorn to be anything
else while the old flag waves. / am a white
man; belong TO the same race as yourself;
but because fall into the current of events
l am denounced. / ask TO say to the peO-
pie of Mississippi, white as well as black,
that l am white man; but can do my
fellow-man justice. The rain and the dew
fall upon all colors alike, and the blessings
OF government should do so likewise; for
''ont OF our blood made He all the nations
OF the EARTH" brought my money down
here. as many other Northern men did, and
am one of this country. l am friend TO
the country, and for that reason have done
all L could towards reconstructing a State
government with its free schools and its
amended statutes.
hope you will get THE CLARION to pub
| fish this, so the people may see that the
carpet-bag Republicans are not enemies TO
the State, but friends.
Your obed't serv't, c.
l send this letter, gentlemen, and ask you
to publish it, so that our people may see
that our friends are among us.
Ireplied very briefly to c. noticing some
of the points he makes. My reply is as fol-
| lows:
| 1st. Your being a Northern man amounts
to nothing. L do not blame you, nor does
any one else in this State. Your services
in the Federal army 1 presume are matter
of congratulation with you. L know moth
ing of the nature of your services, but have
heard it intimated that they were extensive
and peculiar. You came here fresh from
that service, and generous people opened
the doors of their houses to you, and strug-
| gled to forget that you belonged to an army
| that had burned our towns, robbed our citi-
zens and insulted our women. You arrayed
the feats of Sheridan and of Sherman and
of Butler, and denounced our greatest men
as traitors and deserving of death. Every
week the mail brought to you pictorials, in
which our heroes and statesmen were carl
catured, and everything around you and
about you was calculated to remind us of
the extreme misfortune that was upon us.
| will assert now, that no man, with
search warrant, can find one thing in your
house, suggestive of Southern heroism,
taste, beauty or talent.
I'd. You say you were eligible to office,
and by implication you say the representa-
tive white men were not. Why not? You
declare that you are a Republican, which
being interpreted, means and says, that you
are of those who rendered us ineligible, and
that you would scorn to be anything else
except supporter OF the party that excludes
Southern gentlemen and scholars from all
share in the government except it burdens,
and that places in positions of honor and
'emoluments villains and incOmpetents to
eat out our substance, to sit in mock iudg-
ment upon the rights common to all free
men, and upon relations dearer to us than
existence itself What you say of the old
flag Is mere twaddle. 1t certainly, in this
State,
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