Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1874-06-19
TERMS OF SUBSCRIPTION
COLONEL LUCIUS LAMAR.

AS its readers well know, tn
JOURNAL has never been very credu
lous as to an early restoration of goot
feeling between the North and tn
South We had seen too many wa
graves not to know that it would be
long time before men would reason
rather than feel; in a word, before tb,
two peoples could meet without hostile
demonstrations. We still believe tn.
day of general reconciliation to bt
distant. but we believe also that it il
approaching.
Before the day of reconciliation
there must be an era of justice. Is il
too much to hope that with a portion
at leas. of our late enemies this era
has already begun ?
The disintegration of the dominant
party and the installation of a new
Federal Administration at Washing
ton must precede any material change
in the relations between the North and
the South. The first has already be-
gun, anu Lu6 SGCOllu Will 1OllO" III uut
time. There are men in Congress
calling themselves Republicans whose
fealty to their party is daily growing
weaker OF this fact no man can stay
in Washington a week without being
convinced.
The impression thus made upon the
90 tha 10
gree, the plain and natural result of
the alvent of better class of men in
Washington as representatives of the
people of the South. So long as car
pet baggers and scallawags occupied
seats in Congress there was no way for
us to gain the ear of the North. Then
their press was closed against rs and
our so-called representatives We'd with
each other in maligning our motives
aud misrepresenting our actions Now
we have true men to represent us in
Congress and the result of their daily
contact with members from other
States is so plain that no man can fail
to see it. When the outraged South
now rises to tell the story of her
wrongs she is listened to with atten-
tion, and when men consent to hear
they have at least begun to do justice.
Among those who have thus been
instrumental in breaking down the
barrier between Northern and South
ern representatives. no one occupies a
more prominent position than Colonel
LAMAR, Of Mississippi. A secession
ist who had already acquired national
reputation in Congress before the war;
a soldier during the war; disfranchised
and prosecuted since the war; forbid
den even to practice his profession in
the courts whereby he might earn his
bread; the special friend and conf
dant, personal and otherwise, of JEFF
ferson Davis, and elected to his pres
ent seat while still under the ban i'm
posed upon him by the Howard Amend
ment, there seemed little right and
less reason to expect anything from
him save vengeful passion and bitter
denunciation. But, fortunately, LAMAR
was something more than this. He
was man of extraordinary breadth
and scope of intellect as well. By the
force of his intellect and the power of
his eloquence, gifts that his position
as member of the Committee on
Elections gave him ample opportunity
to display in the many contested cases
before the House of Representatives.
he at once placed himself in the front
rank IN that body and then, as before,
he soughtto gain the ear of such mem
bers OF the Radical party, if such there
were, as had any fairness or honesty
or justice in their natures
just then died the man whose life
had done more perhaps than that of
any other man to drive asunder the
American people, and it was meet that
his death, if possible, should be made
the occasion of bringing them together
again. Colonel LAMAR thought he
saw III the death Of SUMNER q possible
opportunity to do great good to the
South by gaining for them n great,
though hitherto unattained, vantage
ground from which to speak to the
reason that he delivered his famous
eulogy on CHARLES SUMNER, the life
long enemy of the South.
it was peace offering, that, coming
from man Southern by birth, by in
shnct and by education, one who never
had heartbeat that was not true to
the land of his birth and to the people
c1 his blood, conld not but command
the attention of our bitterest foe in all
The land. Yet it was a peace offering
mat was full of peril to him who bore
II. Scarel y could LEE himself have
spoken kindly words of SUMNER, even
though standing by his dead body,
without the risk of suspicion
anu the certainty of disapproval.
NO one knew better than LAMAR what
uahger there was Of shaking the conf
nee OF the people of the South. No
one realized more thoroughly than he
with what reason their confidence
might take easy alarm, and no one bet
'0f ilian he knew the impossibility of
+eea'nlh8 That confidence if once lost.
'ia oest friends trembled for the re-
SUIT Bnt LAMAR was not the man to
permit the fear of personal consequent
'eS 10 deter him from the discharge of
"ilaI he deemed to be patriotic duty.
Inc kindly words that had ever been
withheld from the living were given to
vie dead. That they We're grandly
gwen no one who knows LAMAR needs
70 he told. And with what result :?
Tue testimony of men from all sec
n' oi the country and of every shade
~ poiitical opinion, is to be relied on,
''i'Se Kindly words then spoken have
a