The Louisiana Democrat. [volume] (Alexandria, La.) 1845-1918, 1874-11-25
Tho Southern People and Their
Bearing. . "a

a, a --- ~S,>
Just before the late elections q ioun,a1
which passes, and passes properly enough
and the most candid feeling to be- found
among the Radicals Of this country, tha
New York Nation, expressed itsextfeme
concern Us TO the probable conduct Of the
Southern Democrats III the event III the
defeat Of General Dix. The Nation really
seesed to speak in earnest, and we have
no doubt did so speak. We have no doubt
that there are hundreds if not thousands of
respectfully educated men in the Northern
States who have gradually brought them.
selves during the last unhappy decade Of
our history to think Of the people of the
Southern States very much as Tory Eng.
lishmen habitually' think of the people Of
Ireland Or as the Austrian CONSERVATIVES
used to think Of the Lombardo- Venetians
in the dark days Of that domination over
Italy which Austria accepted to her OWE
torment and to the discomfort of all Eu-'
rope at the hands Of the allies in 1885,.
We do not speak now of the fanatics who
honestly and stupidity hate the Southern
people. These are now, and we are in
clined to think they have always been, in
numbers contemplate minority Of the
Northern people. They were lifted into q
temporary power for mischief by the pas
sions attendant upon the civil war and
they played in the Presidential contest of
1860 mischievous part quite cut of pro-
portion to their real strength In the coun-
try. Mr.. Lincoln himself used them but
was not of them, and of the powerful pop
ular minority which, through the control
of the Electoral College, made Mr.. Lincoln
President of the United States in 1860, we,
doubt whether so many as one voter in ten
had the most distant idea that he was
really imperilling the peace of the nation,
or that his action would be regarded as q
declaration of hostility by the Southern
people. The masses of the Northern peo-
pie were solidly and sensibly conservative
in the temper before the civil war. 1t has
been hard sometimes of late years to keep
ones faith in their being so still. But the
events of Tuesday last have VIGOROUSLY
demonstrated the enduring power of that
most important of all the guarantees Of
our liberty and of our institutions, the
"sober second thought Of the American
people," Those Northern doubters as to
the fitness of the South to be intrusted
with the shaping of its own local destinies
for whom we conceive the Nation to speak
are, for the most part, such az it is, dates
no further back than the outbreak Of the
civil war. They know the South only 40
they have seen it since the surrender Of
Lee. In other words they do not know
the South at all. They have seen it har-
ried by vexatious and lawless usurpatiOns,
treated as conquered country, denied its
rights in the great council of the nation,
and turned over at home to the most in
sulting and irrational tyranny to which
race educated in the faith and practice of
self-government has ever in our times been
subjected. From the restlessness ofSouth-
ern society under all these infections, and
from the unwisdom naturally exhibited
here and there at the South in the public
action of communities forbidden to avail
themselves of the guidance and the coun-
sells of the very best classes Of their popu-
latiOn, these well-meaning but not very
well-informed Northern critics of our po-
litical state have argued themselves into
the belief that there is something radical
~ dangerous and untrustworthy in what
they call the "temper of the South" Had
they but taken the pains to read Alright
the story Of the Southern States in the
past, they might have seen reason to doubt
the soundness of this belief. AS matter
Of fact the leading States of the South,
Virginia and Tennessee, the Carolinas and
Georgia and Louisiana, have always been
among the most resolutely conservative
States of the Union. The internal history
of the Confederated States durihg the per-
ipd of the civil war, Of which, unfortu-
nately, little more is really known at tho
North to day than Of the internal history
of Japan during the same period, bore the
most striking witness to tho essentially
law-abiding character and tho fnndamen-
tai common sense Of the Southern people,
Public order, the rights of property, the
whole of that vast p0lice-life in which the
secret of the civilization of great commu-
mites most truly resides, were as little
disturbed in the Southern States beyond
the range of military operations as in the
North. That the relations Of the black
and white races during that iiue were
certainly very free from being relations Of
reciprocal hostility is absolutely demen-
strated by the simple fact that noth5ug
resembling negro insurrection occurred
in any in any part of the South. The
emancipation of the negroes has not elimi-
mated them from Southern society. A
good many Of them, to be sure, have been
petted and seduced by arpet-baggers and
scalawags into iGlehess, !debauelefy, ana
ruin. But a vast majority of them are
still as they were before the war, quiet,
not on the whole disconnected, and in their
way industrious. 1t is a matter of very
much greater moment to the intelligent
white citizens of the South than it posi-
bly, can be to the most philanthropic of the
class of persons for whom we. assume tie
Nationrto speak, that the good feeling
which existed between the blacks and
whites of the South when the whites held
all the power Of that region should COR
tinue to exist between them now that cir
cumstances have given. the blacks social
freedom and political rights. We. for our
own part, have never entertained the
slightest doubt that the South if left, to
herself would show herself at. least; quite
as capable intellectually, and quite as ca
ger morally, to adjust the relations of the
races dwelling within her borders OH 13rin-
ciples of equity and righteousness, as any
of her Northern critics. The bearing Of
the Southern people in this present hour
Of their and of the Republics great, dhl,v-
erance most thoroughly yindicates our
faith. From Virginia to Texas we see the
leaders of the Southern whites dealing
frankly, loyalty and justly with the color
ed people, aud the colored people in re-
turn everywhere beginning to manifest a
most rational realization of the truth that
their permanent interest lies in co.opera-
ting with their white fellow citizens to
make the South of their common residence
all abode of peace, honor and prosperity,
and not in contending with them, to make
it den Of thieves aud awilderness of riot.
| If the Nation will but look at things as
they are on both sides of what used to be
known as "Mason's and Dixons line," we
are inclined to think it will come to the
conclusion that there are people on both