The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1874-11-21
What Is the Cause !?

WR0C as the Cause?
We desire the prosperity of the South in COM
mon with that of the entire country. We believe
the Northern people, Republicans and Democrats,
entertain the same patriotic feeling. We are well
satisfied that the Southern people have not yet
learned the cause of their inert-worse than inert
situation, or they are unwilling to apply the
proper and only legitimate remedy. We must
place the responsibility for their ills where it be-
longs. The best witness on this point that we
know OF is Hon. Alexander II. Stephens. When
opposing the adoption of the secession ordinance
in the Georgia convention, just prior to the war,
he used this remarkable, this prophetic language:
"The baneful consequences that must follow
secession will rest on the convention for all COM
ing time. When we and our posterity shall see
our lovely South desolated by the demon of war
which this act of yours will inevitably invite and
call forth when our green fields of waving har-
vests shall be trodden down by the murderous
soldiery and fiery war sweeping over our land ;
our temples of justice laid in ashes; all the hor-
rorS and desolations of war upon US, Vho but this
convention soiU be held responsible for ii, and who
but he that shall give bis vote for this unwise and
iltimed measure shall 6eheld to strict account for
this suicidal act by their present generation, and
probably cursed and execrated by posterity in all
coming time for the wide and dessolating ruin
that will inevitably follow this act you now pro-
pose to perpetrate.'
If Mr.. Stephens had waited until the war closed
be could not have drawn more correct picture.
1t reads like prophecy. 1t placed the response
bility where it belonged. We have no knowledge
that Mr.. Stephens uusaid this or that he ever
altered his opinion. This places all the response
biity for the war and its consequences upon those
who fomented and inaugurated secession.
For the responsibility for the condition OF
things in the South since the war Gen. Longstreet
is an unimpeachable witness. He says:
"My opinion is that the only true solution OF
the Southern troubles is for the people to accept
cordially and in good faith all the results of the
war and to live up to them like men. If they
would do this and encourage Northern immigra-
ton aud treat all men fairly, whites and blacks,
the troubles would soon be over and in less than
five years the South would be in the endowment
OF greater prosperity than ever before"
Then Mr.. Stephens makes the Southern people
responsible for all that followed as the natural
consequence of the war, and Gen. Longstreet
makes them responsible for the present troubles
and the responding condition Of things. They
are both Southern men and certainly know some.
thing about the South and her people,
Outside of the testimony of these native South
ern men there are circumstances which upms-
takably establish the fact that there is radical
wrong among them that needs remedy. We
have recently been informed by friend that he
has standing offer of seventeen hundred acres
of excellent land bordering on James river, in
Virginia, on which are three sets of farm houses
and outbuildings for the astonishingly small sum
of eight thousand dolars-less than five dollars
per acre. The terms can be made to suit the pur-
chaser ! And this is by no means an isolated
case. There are thousands of acres and hundreds
of bargains of this sort to be had in the State of
Virginia that has the luxury of a Democratic
government. There are always Yankees going
to the West to locate in the backwoods; to take
up their abode in the wilderness and spend a
generation of their days before they could have
farm so we'll ordered and provided And there
are thousands of Germans and Scotch landing at
Locust Point, in Baltimore, every year, who take
the cars on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and
ride to the verge OF civilization and locate for life
in the vicinity of the Indian scalping knife
They must labor and toll for years before they
can have farms as snugly fixed as these dirt cheap
ones in Virginia and other Southern States.
Things Of this sort do not happen without
some great, radical cause. What that cause is
We will le.rpur Southern friAnas tell. But we
can TIL g. untll tha' vouS0 10 reuIuveu Iuey
need not expect different condition of things
Until that cause is removed their lands will be
unstable, their States unsought by the migrant
seeking future home. Their destiny is in their
own hands. 1t will be just what they make it or
allow it to be. A cordial welcome to men and
capital, complete liberation of opinions, an in
dustrious earnest endeavor to build up her vast
ing resources will do the business