Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1874-06-19

unheeded, and every murmur of dis
content and every effort to throw off
their expressions misrepresented here
as originating in the spirit which in
augurated the rebellion. Sir, the state
ment thatthese Southern governments
have no popular constituencies is true,
but they nevertheless have a consti-
tuency to whom they bear response
bihty inexorable as death, 1t is limit
ed to the one point of keeping the
State true aud faithful to the Admins
tration all else is boundless license
That constituency is here in Washing
ton; it's heart pulsates in the White
House There is its intelligence and
there is its iron will. L do exagerate
when I-say that every one of these
governments depends, every moment
of their existence, upon the will of the
President. That will makes and I'M
makes them. A short proclamation
backed by one company decides who
is to be Governor { f Arkansas. A tel
egram settles the civil magistracy of
Texas. A brief order to a general in
New Orleans wrests a State Cavern
ment from thepeople of Louisiana and
vests its control in the creatures of the
Administration. Sir. even conceding
that the decision i'll one or two of these
cases accorded with the rights of the
people, there stands the startling fact
that all the rights, peace, and security
of those people hang upon the preca-
rious tenure of one mans will or ca
price. Is it wonderful that beneath
the chill shadow of such a colossal des-
potism the hope and enterprise and
freedom of that people should wither
and die?
repeat, your policy of securing the
results of the war has reached its con-
summation.
| There is no class of people i'll this
country who have more liberty and
who are more secure from the assaults
of enemies than the coIored people of
the South. Every man, woman and
child OF them can do precisely as they
| like without the slightest restraints
from the whites.
Every black man Of twenty-one
years possesses vote and exercises
the same right and the same individual
| freedom as the wealthiest and proud
est white man in America. There IS
'eot u trace of 11ririiegc throughout tie
land. Morally, mentally. politically,
negro liberty is universal, thorough,
ard complete, and their equality be-
fore the law is without an exception
To go'further is to make it aprivileged
race. Would it not be wise and states
man-like to pause before YOU push
your policy to further extremes, and
see the results of it as time will dis
close them ?
But, sir, is it true that IL the estab-
lshnent of the Union and the en-
reimbursement of the black men
American craftsmanship has ex
hausted its resources and absolved
itself from all obligations grow
ing out of the tremendous con-
tiicts through which the country has
passed? Is no regard to be had TO,
the white population in these South
ern States, to the seven million men il
whose veins run the blood OF The races
that uphold the Christianity and civil.
cation of the world; a population in
which reside the intellectual culture
the moral strength, the material in,
terests, the skilled labor, the useful
capital of that entire section, as well
as its political experience; a population
which, whatever heated partisans may
say of it, has in every period of youl
country's history furnished its due
proportion of Presidents for the Fed
eral Republic, ministers in your cab
lnets, judges upon your bench, states
men in your national Legislatures
generals III Your armies, and troops OF
unsurpassed bravery upon your battle
fields; a population whose leaders
guided your country for sixty ont OF
seventy years of her existence, and
only fifteen years ago surrendered her
to y'nr control, to use the language OF
one Of them upon that occasion, with
out stain upon her honor, matchless
III her glory, incalculab!e in her
strength, the pride and admiration OF
the world.
Sir, the inevitable effect, if not .he
direct object, Of such views will be to
fix upon the Government policy that
works the degradation, humiliation,
wretchedness, and torture, for its own
believe, sir, that this spirit is passing
away even from the minds of my
friends on the other side. It is con
demnei by the spirit of the age You
can find no sanction for it il. the ethics
Of Christian or American statesman
ship. And the authors of the senti-
ments might have learned even a no
bier lesson from the allegories OF
heather mythology. When Prone
theus was bound to the rock it was
not an eagle, the proud bird of Jove,
but 4 vnlture that buried its beak in
his wriihing frame. This is not the
spirit which animated your northern
people to war upon the South, nor was
it the spirit that fired your brave men
TO follow Mcclellan and Grant and
Sherman.
Sir, the issues of that war are well
defined. The people of the South be-
lieved that if the States of this Union
whose institutions were so discordant
that they could not live together IN
der a common government, ''part
slave and part Free" could divide into
two great American republics, each
pursuing it's own destiny, its freedom,
It's progress, and the greatness of its
own people, without interfering with
the other, it would furnish the grand
est example and the grandest argu-
ment in favor of free institutions that
the world had ever seen. The North
believed that such separation was
death to the Americanism Of govern
ment that it was dissolution to the
whole system, and it proclaimed and
waged war to give effect to the princi-
pie that the people of each State and
every section must pursue their free
dom and their greatness and their
glory only in the freedom and great
ness and glory OF the American Repub-
! lie, which would make them freer and
greater and more glorious than they
could become in two separate confed-
eracies. And the whole theory
upon which your wal was Tough.
was that it was as much for
the good Of the Southern people to
! fail in their cause of secession as it
was for the good of the Northern peo-
pie 10 succeed in the cause of the
| Union.
If this be not SO, then you must ad-
NIT you were waging war Of aggres-
sion upon the Southern people to
bring them back into the Union for
your own sectional ACKNOWLEDGMENT,