Wilmington journal., 1874-04-24
From the Augusta Fhronic!e g Sentinel.
HON, BENJAMIN III. HILL.
Letter From a South CarOifhian

BARNwE1I. G.. H., s. c., April 16.-
Editors Chronicle & Sentinel.
I can't think of anything that has
given me more pleasure than the peru
sal of the revelations made by Mr.. b.
FL. Hill at the dinner TO Gov. Vance,
in Atlanta, reported in yesterdays
issue of your paper. 10 have the op-
rortunity of making the conscientious
amende honorable to Mr.. Hill for hav-
ing once harbored the suspicion that
he entertained the idea of going over
to the enemy is truly n luxurious SEN
sation.
Dolt, that I was, to have counte
nanced even al apprehension that
there was anything analogous in the
motives that influenced Joe Brown and
Ben Hill. Ounce of the most pro-
nounced pattern not to have under
stood that this purtative state Of en-
rapport with the Administration party
in 1870 was only ruse de 2ootitiQue to
put that party to final shame and de-
feat ! too thought as you did, that
the victory in Georgia was due to the
universal determination of the honest
people in Georgia to free themselves
simultaneously of the miscreants and
thieves forced upon them and the con-
comitant humiliation and disgrace long
enough undured. But it would seem
in the light of the recent eclaircisse-
ment-that the whole thing had been
arranged aforetime, and that the as
semblage of Georgians at the polls was
a mere formality. Mr.. Hill had pre-
no possibility of failure, and there was
,,aonxx oooocio,, for ornrob oboy,
much less of anxiety-in the con
duct of the election. All this only
proves the truth comprehended in the
remark of noted historian, namely:
1.-The history of people is the history
of it's great men!" But this explana-
ton of Mr.. Hills embodies grain of
comfort to South Carolinians, who
have hitherto sorrowed over the deser-
tion-the seeming desertion, perhaps
| should say-of her sons. To one of
the llnreconstructed, at least, it is sug-
gestive that other men may be acting
in the identical role SO astutely and
tr 'umphantly exemplified by Mr.. Hill;
and that those i'll South Carolina whom
we now regard as political apOstates
and both political and moral renegades
may be in fact but les cnfants pe1(lus
of the coming Democratic victorious
array
Viewed from this standpoint, ''Fo~t
Sumter" Moses may be, in the Gov
ernor's chair of Radical South Caro-
lima, fulfilling mission more lntrlnsl-
callv Democratic than when erst lie
sprang into fame and association with
the flag and capitulation OF historic
Sumter. Even the carpet-bag gentry
may-by parity of reasoning-be Dem
ocrats dyed in the acOOl of Radicalism
for the nonce, to win the confidence of
the black sheep. only to come ouh at
last in the true Democratic guise, and
literally, morally and physically las
| tonish the nativesl" This view of the
subject is most comforting Messrs.
Editors, but like honest and simple old
Zsb Vance, [ an surprised to learn it,
and should never, unaided, have faith
omed a policy so inscrutable. nor
dreamed that in this degenerate and
unheroic age there was to be found so
much of the raw material whereof a
noble- and bygone era constructed its
noble army Of martyrs. Had this sub
| tie 0rein1us OlCIaudi been but COM
pretended and appreciated when the
world was younger, how much of sa
cred and patriotic blood might have
remainded unshed in the name of lib
! erty?
| Brutus, who was without doubt "an
| honorable man" and himself aspiring
to rise above his fellows, need never
have incarnadined 'his cursed steel"
with ambitious Caesars blood!
Charlotte Corday might have with
held her dagger from the cowardly
carcass of SanSuinary Marat William
Tell need not lave sped his arrow at
the tyrant's base heart, All that seems
necessary WAS to have feigned compla-
isance with the policy of the hour, and
10, disenthrallment.i i'll good time must
have eventuated with skillful manteu-
vering. But only transcendeEt genius
is competent to engineer this peculiar
policy. No ordinary or even extraor-
dinary endowments are equal to the
ST ering of the craft. A veritable Pa
linurus must be ever at the helm to
obviate shipwreck.
Tt is safe to say, by way of illustra-
tiQn, that no other man in Georgia or
elsewhere could at one and the same
time have taught the renegades to
Radicalism that not "a ,ohite nlon ar0s
allOued to be Il RadicaI IN .fuU .teUOW-
ship acith tie negroes and ca11oet-bag-
gers, and still retain his social re-
spectabiity arith decent people" and
yet so demean himself politically as to
''gct into q position to be heard By the
RddicaI authorities at IVashi1agttn n,
ard Nats defeat tic continuance Of
RGdica domination IN Georgia" l
say that there is no other man than
Mr.. Hill who could have done this,
and I don't think he could do it again.
BOURBON.