The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1872-03-14
The RECONSTRUCTED Southern States.

to drink the perennial waters of bitterness than
the people of the reconstructed States of the
South during the last ten years. They have
gone through that which would have utterly
cast down and left forever hopeless people
less brave, less strong, less intrinsically great
To haye shown themselves, as they have done,
superior to every vicissitude of fortune; in
war, superior to defeat and humiliation; IN
peace-or that which is called peace, though 1T
is peace not in deed but in name-superior to
Injustice, insult, oppression. wrong, and the
ISLANDERS of every evil tongue, stamps them.
whild shedding glory upon the country OF
which they are part, as being OF the very
highest type of manhood known among men.
Did they belong to some other nation than
this; did we know them, not as brethren with
whom we have been Mt strife, but as strangers,
and marked how they have borne themselves
through immeasurabe calamities, they would
have extorted the universal praise of the Amer
ican people, including those now blinded by
fanaticism, or warped by an unreasonable, and
it would seem, unappeasahle hatred. we
should have been proud of our own uncon-
querable blood that runs in their veins; quick
to claim them as our kindred, and ready, with
an outstretched hand, to lift them out of the
ruins of their fortunes with which they are
now surrounded.
We are accustomed to overflow with sympa-
thy Cor what it pleases us to call the oppressed
of other lands, strangely forgetting that We
have something marvellously like oppression
in our own. Indeed, for such, and for any, it
seems, not of our own household, we are very
tender-h hearted, ready To make any sacrifices in
their behalf, and take great credit to ourselves
for the exercise of an enlarged Christian chari-
ty abroad, though destitute, in significant di-
rection and singular manner, of that excellent
virtue at home. We have ears that are acute
to hear and eyes that are quick to see bonds
afar off, and, as selfconstituted apostles OF
emancipation, we are ready to fly on the wings
of the wind to the uttermost parts OF the earth
to break them. We have boundless vision,
so intractably soundless that we cannot con:
tract it to recognition of what is demanded OF
us at our own doors. In the plenitude of our
benevolence towards the inhabitants of other
nations, if not, indeed, of other planets, and in
the unouenchableness of our enthusiasm for
remote enterprises of succor, we 60 tracing the
rim of the horizon for something to relieve,
carefully overlooking the claims of those whom
we need not traverse the globe, or get beyond
our own borders to find, to whom is due first
Justice and then fraternal kindness. Hungary,
Ireland, Cuba, have we as a steady source OF
sorrow. whose griefs we volunteer to carry in
our bosoms, but for one-third of our own land,
our own kindred, the people of the South,
bowed down in dust and ashes, we have moth
ing but contumely, an averted face, denuncia-
ton, insult, and a heavy hand.
AS matter of public policy, as matter of
political wisdom, not to put 1t on higher
grounds, this is not only a gross wrong, but
gross blunder. In any and every view it is in
defensible and objectionable. Compared with
the vindctive blindness of the authors OF the
policy being pursued towards the Southland
it is Radical through and through-the blind,
ness of the mole is preternaturai sight. ana
what possible good can come OF such policy
1t is fraught with nothing but evil. 1t does
violenceto common sense, to common Justlce, 10
everything worthy of the name of statesman
ship, and to all the better instincts of the
American people. it is policy not only OF
supreme folly, but Of supreme wickedness, OF
vengeance, and deserving the scorn OF every
right-minded man. Vengeance is mine, and
will repay" saith One whose authority to Gre
ate and power to inflict penalties we dare not
deny. Perhaps even the champions of desola-
tion. of retribution--they who continually ex-
hibit an abiding faith, worthy of satanic ma
ture in the corrective and curative powers of the
sword. the faggot, and of all kindred cruel con-
trivances worthy alone of savage men-though
denied in acts, might be constrained to admit
in words, the super-humanity of this decree.
Yet it is spurned from them as is almost every
thing else that is worthy and wise. The full
ness of their ingenuity has been exercised to
make the South uninhabitable; to set her peo-
ple at each others throats; to keep alive and
active the spirit of animosity and discord; to
drive approaching peace from her borders, and
to cnvelop all with The breath of calumny like
a contagion And wherefore all this? Why
this remorscless policy of anger, cruelty, and
crime? Bad indeed must be the cause, and
bad indeed it is. What is it but that these
malignant ministers of Radicalism, by this
cowardly and atrocious means, linked with all
the appliances Of usurped arbitrary power
which from long experience they know so well
how to use, hope not only to keep their party
humiliation, but to fasten it permanently upon
the American people? The whole thing is a
desperate and dangerous device, and intolerable
usurpation, and it merits universal eXecration
The bearing of the Southern people, as
whole, under all that they have been forced, at
the point of the bayonet and in other ways
hardly less tyrannous, to undergo, has been
such as to command the respect and admira-
ton of all candid and unprejudiced men
Theirs has been ND common lot; their suffer
ings no common sufferings nor IS what they
have lost to be measured by any common stand
ard. Amid it all they have been brave, stout
hearted, outrageous; not sullen, nor desparing
though greatly tempted to despair; but looking
forward, through present darkness and over
present calamities, to the dawn of a, better day.
Their patience, their strength their good cheer
have not been in vain. The day is breaking
and this is due in a great measure to their tenn
perateness, wisdom, forbearance under trying
circumstances. 1t cannot but be believed and
hoped that the exercise of these will continue
to the end. The recent past to the Southern
people is a dreary waste. The opening future
is full of promise to them as an integral part
far distant when, relieved of the present en-.
barrassments that impede their progress and
bear them down, they will illustrate, for the
encouragement Of other nations and other
times, how true it is
That men may rise on stcppng-stoncs,