The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1876-03-16
" HAT Is COMING.

| In the course of a debate in the House
last Monday, Mr.. Hill, of Georgia, expressed
his regret that the gentlemen from the Re-
publican side of the House seemed to go
back on their record of last session. He
had canvassed the State of Georgia against
| secession and always found the old soldiers
standing by his side and opposed to seces-
sion. l: is curious incident in history
that at the very time the Southern soldiers
were fighting the enemy at New Orleans
| there was a convention, of New England
men at Hartford proclaiming the very doc
trine of secession on which the South had
subsequently acted
Mr.. Kasson-Did any State ever under
take to enforce it2
MIR. Hill, without noticing Mr.. Kassen's
question-And l do not know that any
body engaged in that convention was ever
struck from the pension rolls.
MIR. Atkins What has secession to do
with this bill Secession is dead. Why
should it be brought up here and discussed
in this hall Why should the gentleman
from Georgia fling it in our faces on this
floor AS Southern man protest against
the introduction of such questions.
Atkins, be it remembered, was an orig
inal secessionist as Hill was a violent Union
man In 1901. Atkins would not have the
''dead carcase that stinketh" thrust in the
faces, at this late hour, of Northern and
Southern people. The reeking corpse
through ten years has been successfully
hidden out of sight everywhere in the
South. Radicallsm and Thad. Stevens and
Ben Butler and terrors of carpet bag sway
have made the country forget questions
which Ben Hill rudely thrusts, most unex-
pectedly, in the face of Congress, and At
kins, of Tennessee, hurries forward, in hot
haste, to stif1e discussion and tell the coun-
try that secession is dead" Ben Hill
would not reanimate the corpse; but his
purpose is to produce the discussion of
questions that led to the war between the
States and hold men responsible to-day for
blunders then committed. He is thrust
aside from Southern and Democratic leader
ship in the House by the genius and elo7
quence and adroitness of Lamar, who, in
1901, was only less terrible than Yancey
to the extent that his youthfulness divested
his utterances of power and effective
ness. If Ben Hill succeed in exciting
the discussion which Atkins would
repress, the Democratic party in the South
will be rent in twain, and then it will be
seen why, in the older States Of the South,
the word Conservative has been persist
emily used as prefix to the word 80 Democ-
racy," and why, when in certain localities
the party leaders, of Lamar's and -4tkins's
school of political thinking, having become
absolute, they reject the prefix and pro-
nounce themselves plain Democrats. "
Old Wings and Douglas men of 1860 resent
the omission, and many assert that they ARE
not and never will be "Democrats," and
to this dangerous spirit Ben Hill ministers
IN Congress, and against it Mr.. Atkins in
Weighs with bitterness. The New York
Herald has been busying itself with the in
quiry, show to divide the white popula-
tion as partisans and break down the color
hne." This little episode and collision be-
tween the two doughty Congressmen solves
the difficulty and points the way; and most
strangely of all facts is the truth that La
mar and Gordon, original secessionists, an
ticlpatiHg the very event for which Hill and
Atkins pave the way, have gene bosshot
beyond Hill and already captured sambo,
who becomes, if the whites divide, the
ally of the Atkins Lamar secession wing OF
the original Democracy.