The Highland weekly news. [volume] (Hillsborough [Hillsboro], Highland County, Ohio) 1853-1886, 1876-07-06
Method of Confederate Madness.

There is m0ClVe IN the apparent NAL
ice of the South, as now manifesting it
self in the violent speeches made at
various points on Confederate "Memo-
rial Day." or in the more infamous acts
recently committed in northern Louis
lana and southern Mississippi, in South
Carolina and Georgia, and latest at the
Petersburg, Va, municipal election.
There is method in all this fury and out
rage. Let US see if it can be made
plain.
There are two purposes sought: to
fire the Southern heart" and to
frighten the negro into subsection, so far
as his political rights are concerned.
Hence the violent speeches; hence the
murderous intimidation. The White
Leaguers are everywhere learning the
skill with which the Georgian Democrats
do their manipulation. As to speech,
they are all on par. What's bred in
the bone must come out in the flesh" is
an old adage. "Out of the abundance
of the heart the mouth speaketh, wrote
the inspired Hebrew, and when a COM
munity like the white South have been
so long indurated by the teachings of
slavery and neutrality-suspicious. burnt
into them by the fierce ordeal of civil
war and the fiery trials OF defeat-it is
not to be expected that speech will not
sometimes be fierce and vindictive even
to extreme unwisdOm. The folly is ON
our part, in not seeing that to defeat a
man does not necessarily change his
opinions; still less does it make a COM
,H,,os Tho -101,o1, io
to be always son guard" tolerant to-
ward the inevitable expression, but
sternly repressive of all embOdiments
thereof that lead to mischief, while sedu-
lously cultivating all forces, ideas, and
institutions which may tend to create
other conditions in the South. This is
our duty. Would that we pursued it as
steadily as the Confederate Democracy
do their mischievous courses and pur-
poses.
Just now they are finding that free in
making more manly and courageous the
mass of the citizens who were enfran-
chised by the war. Everywhere, even
in Mississippi, so lately overpowered and
overawed, the Republicans of the South
are showing that they are more and more
determined to assert themselves, and to
so act together, and vigorously, that the
present one-sided game of intimidation
and murderm may be checked and perhaps
suppressed where it occurs. 1t is the
evident growth of this feeling which has
induced the present revival of violence.
The hope of possible triumph at the
November election has led perhaps to
undue elation. This may account for
the outbursts of rebel spleen as well as
confidence, but it is not necessary to &C
count for it on such basis.
The first and chief aim of the Southern
Democratic leaders is to extend, preserve,
and maintain the control they have now
reobtained over the Southern States.
The Democratic party, as national
organization, has been and always will
be (while the Confederate leaders rule)
sacrificed to this purpose. The South,
knit together by a sectional policy, may
again be able to control the UniOn-or,
is it unjust in the view of history as
well as recent utterances, to attempt to
diuide and destroy 1t. The aim, then, of
the Confederate Democracy is first to
keep what they have got; next to obtain
control where they have not yet sue
ceeded, and lastly to unite and crys-
tallize the sectional and Democratic
South, no matter what becomes of the
party in other portions of the Union.
Under this policy the South is and
will continue TO be a menace to the stab;t-
Hyof the Union, that for which three
hundred thousand Northern lives were
given, and to defend which two million
men mustered under arms.
The Union defenders must remember
this at the ballot. box. They must not