Montgomery County sentinel. [volume] (Rockville, Md.) 1855-1974, 1873-01-31
THE SEN 1'INEL.
Radicalism at the South.


some new illustration of the miserable condi-
tion of the Southern States under the rule of
the party which has acquired another four
years lease of power. Three facts. concern
ing three Of the noblest States of the old Union.
are noted in a single paper. ponisana has
fallen into such utter anarchy that two sever
al sets OF State Officers and two separate Leg
isatures have claimed the obedience of the
citizens; OF which it would seem that neither
party was even decently respectable. and the
quarrel was altogether so disreputuble that,
though the interests of the dominant faction
at Washington were involved, Gen. Grant
shrank at first from interference. Finally. he
decided to interpose id behalf of his friends.
and, supported by a decree of the Supreme
Court of tire Union (Which seems to have
about as much to do with the matter. under
ancient constitutional rules, rs the Court of
Queens Bench), he has ordered the Federal
troops to upheld the authority of the party
represented by the negro Lieutenant Govern
or, Pinchback-the party more odious of the
two to the respectable people of Louisiana
The Legislature of South Carolina, from which
the South Carolinians are excluded, and which
IS composed of emancipaied negroes and
Northern adventures, has elected as United
States Senator member of the latter class,
who has secured his election by wholesale pur-
chases OF the votes of negro legislators. A
dispute arose thereuPon, and one of the sup
porters of the beaten negro candidate express
ed his disgust in such very explicit language
as led, in American parlance, 10 IA free fight
around the Speakers chair Finally the
State of Alabama, once among the most sol
vent and best trusted in the Union has pur-
chased and sold railway and, having Meth
er paid the money for the first purchase nor
received that for the second, is exposed to the
humiliation of seeing the property held and
sold under an order in bankruptcy 1t is
needless to say that no such things could have
happened under the old regime Men like
Warmoth and Pinchback would never have
been elected TO govern the citizens of Louis-
ana while the Southern whites elected their
own rulers. A Patterson would never have
dreamt of offering himself as a candidate for
the seat once filled by John G. Calhoun; and
If he had, his election would have been as i'm
possible as the receipts of bribes by the chival-
Ty of the Palmetto State And in the old days
Alabamas credit was as good as that of Cana
da; and her citizens were as Justly proud and
jealous of her financial honor as Engishmen
of the fiscal credit and good faith of England.
These wretched scenes are part and parcel of
the system of reconstruction pursued by a
Radical Congress, and applauded by English
Liberals. The first object Of that system was
revenge-the punishment and degradation of
the Southern 'rebels" The second was the
establishment Of Radical ascendency in the
South. The Radicals knew that at the time
of Lincoln's election they werea minority in
the North and after the war, which had given
them the ascendency there, was over, they
might become minority again. But If they
could appropriate the franchises Of the South
ern States to their creatures, and thus secure
q number of " rotten boroughs,h whose rep
resentatives would be nominated by them
selves, without regard to the wishes of the
people, they might contriTe, though in popu-
lar minority everywhere to maintain them
selves in possession of the presidency, the cleo
tocal college, and majority in both branches
of Congress 10 order to effect these ends, it
was necessary to disfranchise the real people
of the South, and create a ''bogus" people in
their stead. The first was done by means Of
the penal acts SO lavishly passed by Congress
America prides herself upon having shed no
blood on the scaffold. 1t is true she did not,
as other couquering Governments have DONE
take the lives of the chiefs of the vanished par
ty. But it is equally true that she has inflicted
upon the conquered people, as whole, heav-
Ter punishment than has ever been imposed by
modern con9uerors upon a large portion of their
subjects. Wholesale Acknowledgement, sub
lection to the rule of enfranchised slaves and
system of government directed to fleece the
conquered country for the benefit of its con-
querors, have for seven or eight years perpet-
uated the distress and exaspcrated the bitter
feelings left by war carried On with unusual
ferocity. In half the States of the South
negro constituency organized under the lead
ership of adventures from the North has mo-
nopolized political power; has excluded the
Southerners from all participation in The con-
troll of their own affairs has taxed them
without allowing them representation and
misspent the produce Of those taxes in such n
manner to add the keenest sense of humilia-
ton TO the bitterest consciousness of injury -
The honor of States as honorable as Great
Britain has been dragged in the dust their
debts have been left unpaid while their people
have been feeced their rulers have filled
their pockets with the produce of unlawful
bonds issued at an enormous discount; and
while the negroes, who pay no taxes have
been kept in good humor by liberal appro-
priation none of the real needs of the coun-
try have been attended to. The forces of the
Federal Government have been at the dispo-
siton Of the pec1lators and jobbers from the
North who exploit the negroes for their own
benefit. All remonstrance has been vain. 1t
was as easy as it was useless to expose the
injustice, to foreshow the effects, of such
policy. The Radical majority in Congress
cared neither for the injustice nor the conse-
quences, so long as they profited by the one
and the Southerners suffered by the other
They maintained and aggravated tariff which
compels the Southern planter or farmer 10 pay
twice the value of everything he buys-taxes
him, that is, to the full extent OF his proper
yearly outlay on implements, clothing, every
thing necessary to his cultivation, not for the
benefit of the Union, but for the personal adj
vantage of Northern traders and manufacture
ers Show them that this is to ruin the South,
and they are all the better pleased; for hostil-
ity to the Southern people is the avowed
policy of their party. Gallant and high
spirited nations have been misgoverned before
now. Hungary and Venetia were il-rued
after l849, but at least their rulers baye in
tened them to prosper if they would but he
content But never before has a nation been
governed as the South has been governed
since 1865, BY rulers whose avowed object is
to punish and injure them-never before have
rulers been the open enemies Of the country
they ruled.
1t is in vain, of course, to appeal to such a
faction against the folly of their course But
we might have thought that those who had
no selfish end to gain must have seen that
every object, we do not say inherently good,
but decently plausible, must suffer by such
policy. Grant that the welfare of the negro
is of indefinitely more moment than that OF
the white man-grant that it is right to sac
rifce the latter as completely as may be ne
cessary for the elevation of the former-grant
more than the widest of negrophile fanatics
would dare to- claim--is it not clear that to
embitter the strong against the weak, the lar
ger number against the smaller, the higher
race against the lower, must end in the ruin OF
the latter? The present state Of things cannot
last forever, and every year that II lasts
makes the change more dangerous to the hap
less creatures who are made the tools of OPP