The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1875-08-26
WHAT THE EXCLUSION OF MA.
DAVIS FROM ILLINOIS SIGNIFIES.

6
WHAT THE EXCLUSION OF MA.
DAVIS FROM ILLINOIS SIGNIFIES.
!
OF course, it was the purpose OF those
good people in Illinois to gather great
multitude at the Winnebago Fair, and we
nad thought the discussion evolved part of
an advertising scheme, never dreaming that
anybody, Democrat or Radical, would OBJ
ject to personal contact or ASSOCIATION with
Mr. Jefferson Davis But we were griev-
ously mistaken in all this. Such has been
the unutterable insanity illustrated by news
| papers and people, that Mr.. Davis. as our
readers were advised, withdraws his assent
to the request that he should deliver an ora
tiOn at the Winnebago Fair. Who could
have believed such facts possible Are we
not lectured daily and hourly by Northern
newspapers because of our local selfishness
and local prejudices, because of our detes-
tation of a molly crew of thieves who swept
over the South and persistently employed
negro stupidity to plunder towns and coun-
ties and states We have been reviled by
the North without stint for the very facts
which pertain, it seems, to the blessed peo-
pie of the North as well as to ourselves.
Horace Greeley devoted his life to the de-
nunciation of the habits of life and of think
ing, and Of popular morals of the South.
He did more to beget war that impoverished
us than any one man in America. He was
finally induced to traverse the South, and
70 Va ii
and looked into his face and confessed that,
however mailman or erazed enthusiast, he
was honest, and all differences in social
life and all personal feeling was forgotten,
and the South outvled the North in honor
ing the peculiar personal virtues of Horace
Greeley. Wherever the old man went, and
wherever throngs looked upon his gray
hairs and into his clear, brave eyes, his
worth was recognized and every conceive
BILE demonstration of respect was rendered
by an impulsive and, in this instance, sure
ly, generous people. Mr.. Jefferson Davis,
on the contrary, was ever most liberal. He
was accustomed to speak, publicly and pri-
vately, most kindly of his Northern fellow
land in 1860 were expressions of strong
admiration for the peculiar virtues of the
people of New England. We remember
that such was the generosity of his declara-
tiors at Eastport, Maine, that many illiberal
Southern newspapers condemned, with ut
most harshness, the kindly assertions of Mr.
Davis. He became the leader of the
Southern people, and obeyed their behests.
He was their representative, and acted by
their authority and with their approval
when shaping the fortunes of the Confed-
eracy at Richmond, and now when, because
OF his history, he is compelled by Northern
prejudIces to declare that he has no coun-
try beyond the Ohio, the North can never
more complain that Southern people are
governed by instincts of local selfishness
and by local preiudices. 1t is very unfor-
tunate, perhaps, but the Northwest and
Northwestern newspapers have offended the
whole South in this rude and shameless
and indefensible extrusion of Mr.. Davis
from position which he agreed to fill sim
ply that he might serve both the West and
South. For three years past he has de-
voted his energies of intellect and social
potency at home and in Europe to the crea-
ton of enlightened opinion in behalf of
direct trade between the valley of the Mis-
sissippi and London and Liverpool The
London society, which has done so much
in the achievement of this purpose
owes Its existence and triumphs, to a
very great extent, to the sedulous care with
which MIR. Davis, the finest of living colo
quists, has promoted this most desirable con-
summation. He has been the chief agent in
organizing steamship company whose ves-
sells of double keels are designed to ascend
the Mississippi even to St. Louis. By
means of THESE agencies of direct trade he
would augment almost by one half the
value of the grain crops of those stupid
people who protest, through the absurdly
malignant Inter Ocean, against the advent
of Jefferson DAVIS into Illinois. Winnie
bago, is now the sacred SOIL" Let no ex-
rebels foot ever desecrate it, and when,
in future years, Northern people assert our
sel6shness and deride our local prejudices
we need only confess the justice of these
criticisms and, pointing to knaveries prac-
ticed everywhere by Northern adventures
in the South, to the degradation to which
they have subjected blacks morally re-en-
slaved, to the towns and counties desolated
by their malpractices ia governments and
finally to this outrage done jefferson Davis,
the most selfish adventurer must con-
fess that tar and feathers could not too elo-
quently assert Southern hatred of Kelloggs
and Ames, and of myriads like them, who
have rioted in stolen wealth and reigned in
these hapless States. -
r,r.pro,,,,u;lIo J,.,, .a.l,,,t 80 f.,,--,.. - a.