The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1874-04-26
SOUTHERN LEADERS AND THEIR
OSTRACISM.

IL
for political existence and have exhausted
al the methods to obtain a recognition OF
their sovereignty have submitted to every
indignity that could possibly he heaped
upon a free people; have borne patiently
and meekly the outrages, wrongs and OPP
pressions of an unrelenting and heartless
authority we find an organ of Northern
sentiment, the New York Herald, haunting
US in this language:
The most painful circumstance about the South has
been the disappearance of T. marked men who serv-
Ell her fore the war and who led her through that
extra ordil airy episode OF the f'onfederacy What
were the faults of the Confeder cy the men who
guided it possessed high order Of craftsmanship
We certainly expected that with the return Of peace
and the uDprecedeEtedly generous amnesty which at
tended peace, these oul re- ain their adership
They owed this to their people, even if they had
lost the insprat of ambition. Never did people
ee counsel and aid more than the Souherners after
the rebellion. There were in cruel attitude War
had desolated their homes, destroyed their indus ry
overturned their social institutions decimated their
families and deprived them of franch sc which
conferred upon a who had hitherto been bought
and sold as slaves and kept in condition OF deiber
ate and criminal ignorance that tley might be docie
slaves. They needed the utmost wis 'om and good
advice. But the who led them in the past
no lonL err leaders Lee retired into secluson from
which he never came and died without say ng word,
az far as we know to counsel the people who followed
benjamin became an exile and is now British sub
ject.
Breckenridge has initiated the reserve and silence of
Lee. Hunter made strenuous effort to reenter the
Senate, but failed. The ouly prominent Sout ern
leader who has come back to Congress is Stephens,
and he comes like ghost, awakening curiosity, but
no longer inspiring obedience confidence. This
sudden fading out of the old Southern statesmen is
an extraordinary circumstance, and attribute
many of the evils which have ag awaited the South
Stat to the apathy helpless of the gifted
and cou aeeous men who led them into rebel ion. an
for ur years compelled the world to deal with their
Confederacy as genuine and powerful nation.
We should have welcomed the leaders of the Con-
feo eracy If they came back to polit cal life For all
people have natural leaders, and the who natur
ally led the South the men of the Confederacy
But inst ad Of their leadership have had in tn.
south a. series OF political volcanoes and earthquakes
and omnous grumblings. To-day the smoke
III Arkansas. Yesterday heard the rumbling in
South Carolina; tomorrow the earth may rend in
Louisiana or Texas, with spoutng fire and lava
streams. All these phenomena mean the same thing.
There are flames and suming fire under the sur
face With all OF our craftsmanship have never
been able to reach the evil 1t is idle to talk of recon
struction or peace so long what in
Arkansas. It is easy TO make desolao and call 1t
peace 1t is easy to provoke chaos and call it recon
structon. This Is what we have me in the South.
Our Northern contemporary must know
that the very "painful circumstance it so
seriously deplores is the work of the politi-
cal party it sustained during the war. The
Federal Congress, knowing the "high order
of craftsmanship of the Southern leaders
took special care to disfranchise them and
every other man Of moderate talent or de-
cent character. Perhaps to their cause can
be attributed the fearful misrepresentation
of the sentiment of the Southern people in
the Congress of the United States.
The reconstruction law, with its r0n-clad
oath, was conceived with an object single to
the purpose of denying the men who had led
the Southern people in the past any voice in
the future direction or control Of the Govern
ment. Their patriotism, craftsmanship, elo-
qnence and honesty were feared, and the |
Northern legislator dared not meet in civil
council the brave and gallant foe who had
his prowess and superiority on
the tented field.
TO absence of this element of Southern
perhaps, can be traced the
origin Of the misfortunes of the Southern
people. They have, in fact, little or no rep
resentation. Ignorant and corrupt carpet
baggers and strangers, by the power Of
Federal bayonets, have thrust themselves
forward and gained positions in the national
council, and claim to represent people,
whose customs, habits and language they
scarcely Understand, and yet tie HeraM
deplores the absence Of our good and true
men, and at the same time is silent upon
the execrable law that denies them admis-
sion into the halls OF Congress.