Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1874-09-23
SPIRIT OF THE SOUTH.

The papers OF the coutn haulest
spirit in keeping with the events which
have recently transpired there. Taking
them as an index to public opinion, we
can readily understand the movements
secret and open to drive out the White re-
publicans from that section. We have be-
fore us copies of the Daily News of Peters
burg, Virginia, in which we find senti-
ments that disgrace civilization. As
sample we clip the following from an ar
ticle in reference to the story told by Con-
gresham Hays of the barbarites in the
South.
If all this be true it is a wonder that no
Ku-Klux has had the good sense to kill Hays,
and thus stop his lying. 1t is wonder too
if there are so many KuKlux down South,
that none of them haze ever killed Kellogg
Senator Patterson, Gov. Moses, Bullock.
Busted or some of the other scoundrels VINO
infest the South and are the root OF all our
evils. The death of such men as they under
any circumstances, or by any agency wouio
be 4 blessing to the land, but WE have never
heard of anybody being killed but unmention-
able negroes and unheard of republicans.
That is the way they le
Another editorial in the same paper
headed Assassination, discourses glbly
upon that subject, and endeavors by quot
ing recent attempts at assassination in other
countries to show that they are in advance
of us in the art of playing assassin, and
to fire the southern heart to the necessary
pitch to engage in the cowardly and
bloody business. 1t says:
While bold attempts at assassinstions thus
frequently occur in distant countries, and on
men of great character and eminence, we OBJ
serve Q different state of things existing IN
this country, and especially in the South,
even concerning the greatest scoundrels and
tyrants who outrage the people and trampla
upon the liberties of the country. We have
no doubt that those who attempted to take the
life of Pardo and Bismarck felt themselves,
and perhaps their country and religion, deep
" offended and agrieved by some imaginary
wrong perpetrated by those statesmen, and
thought their mode Of redress as justified by
God and man. But here in the South none
of our people seem ever to rise to the impor-
lance of such emergencies, and the greatest
scoundrels and oppressors who live within the
boundaries of the old confederacy, are per-
lie highways without being met by assassins
or having their day lights put out by pistol
or q dagger Look, for instance, at the two
noted cases of Kellogg in Louisiana, and
Moses in South Carolina. Here are two men
who have inflicted upon the people of those
states untold injury, wrong and oppression
They are without their parallel in the history
of villainy. They have robbed the people of
millions of their property, imposed taxes up
on them too intolerable to be borne, and have
placed the white man under the foot of the
negro. Is it not a marvel, under such cir
cumstances, that these two consummate land
pirates should have been permitted thus long
to live, and have a being? Is it not aston
ishipgly strange that no pistol has been ac-
cidently fred into one of their rotten car
cases, nor single dagger privately slipped
between their left ribs or into their Jugulars?
But so far from ..ny merited revenge of the
kind having ever been praciced upon either
Of them, even Kellogg escaped unhurt the
other day in New Orleans, while many very
good men fell victims in the war which that
scoundrel had provoked! The ways of Prov
idence are frequently past finding out.
But justice will come after a while and
these merciless villains will get their dues.
May that justice come and come quickly.
While we have this kind of language
from the press we have speeches like that
OF Robert Toombs recently made at At
lanta, who is reported in one of the papers
Of that place as follows:
The people, he said, wanted him to make a
speech which would be greeting to the citi-
zens of Louisiana, and he would say that he
would help to stop any troops that might pass
through Atlanta. l am an outlaw they say,
and would not beg for pardon l have done
all could to uphold right, and only wished
that my record with God was as good as it is
with my country. The people have submitted
too much, for every concession to tyranny
is a new privilege, and they ought to have
resisted all conservative movement.
Whoever can read such sentiments
as these and sympathze with the White
Leagues. as some democratic papers do,
must have strange ideas OF justice and hui
mainly and the duties and rights of citi-
Zenship