The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1874-09-02
"TNE WHITE MANS PARTY"


stood at the North that what is just
now known as the "white mans par
ty" at the South has been called into
being not by the Southern whites at
all, but by the Northern Radicals
Not only common fairness and JUS
tice to the South, but the best inter
ests Of the whole country, require
that there should be no befogging Of
the Northern mind on this point
We are no longer at war with the
Southern States, nor is there any
longer danger Of their being built up
with European help into great pow
er, threatening the Northern and the |
Western people. They are once
more an integral part of our common
country. We can no more afford to
make serious mistakes in our dealing
with them than England can to make
mistakes in her dealings with Ire
land, or Austria in her dealings with
Hungary. When the civil war end
ed in 1865 it left the South a COM
pact, united people, made up of two
races closely CONNECTED by their So
cial necessities as we'll as by their
social traditions. The violent aboli
ton Of slavery by the Federal Gov
ernment broke with a blow the thread
Of the social traditions which con-
nected these two races. 1t did not
break, nor in the nature Of things
could it break, the social necessities
which connected them. So far as we
have any authentic grounds on which
to form an opinion about the matter,
the reciprocal feelings of the two
races at the South to each other at
that time was as friendly as reason
and experience combine to show that
in such circumstances it would be
likely to be. The simple fact that
during the whole period Of the civil
war there was no such thing known
as a negro rising in the South against
the whites establishes an oyerwhelm-
ing presumption that the emancipa-
ted negroes, if they had been left to
themselves, would have quietly adj
;usted themselves to the new order
5 Of things in such way as not seri
ously to interfere with the restora
ition of prosperity and Of order
throughout the South. The true
: history of the raising Of the so-cal!e(
, 'scolored troops Of the Union arm,
, has yet to be written, and when i
. comes to be written there will be
curious revision Of regulations il
: connection with that particular phas
e of what President Lincoln, with I'm
e conscious sarcasm, but too truly dies
d cr;bed as the prodigious sob of tn
e civil war. But it is already perfect
: ly we'll understood that so far as til
o Southern States were concerned tn
10 negroes enlisted within their horde
= were literally "coralled'' by the Unto
:. forces, precisely as negro troops ha
been eighty years before by the roy
3 al armies of Great Britain in the
l. struggle with the rebellion of til
ii colonies. The percentage Of black
3 divorced from their normal comes
J., ton with the community in whic
VI they lived by the accidents of W.
'e was no greater in 1866 than in It's
:; But the Radical leaders at tt
,g North soon perceived that if the
OF were to preserve their control of tt
Federal Government against the pc
I'd lis of any change in the political Sc
er timent of the North they must fort
81 fy themselves in Congress with av
raglan phalanx of rotten borous
members, and that to do this tt
~ shortest way would be to split Il
W Southern society completely in tw
IT, depress and disfranchise the white
on who, of course, could not be reli
o. upon to support Radicalism as pc
ho sistent national policy, and regime
w. the negroes politically in opposite
o. to the whites. This they accordin
ID " proceeded to do, this they did wi
lie their now UNANIMOUSLY famous ''rcce
-. ' struction'' measures. From the II
oh ment when these measures began
&. be carried out at the South the e,
2st cution Of them, and the political
~ ganization of the negroes under the
~ were confded to a set of political I
for venturers, rapscallions, and rasc;
et- the like of whom no country in {
nt' times has produced. These PEG
7el undertook this work distinctly