Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1876-07-26
Rutcher Butler.

The leader in the HAMBURG ""'s"o'
General Butler of Georgia. defends MS
act in a recent letter of considerable
,enotb He assails Governor Chamber
lain and Attorney General Stone as car
pet-baggcrs and outrage manufacturers
and says their data as to the massacre
comes from the ex-parte statements OF
living and besotted negroes and lew per-
jured white men who had instigated them
to instruction. When we consider that
it was not the negroes who gave the hrs'
offence, that the instruction was one OF
white origin, that the negroes only acted
ON the defensive, and that the slaughter
was almost entirely on their side. we shall
understand very well where the RESPONSE
bilty rests for the blood that was shed.
Butcher Butler would try to make us be-
lieve that the colored people got up the
riot to have themselves killed for political
effect, that the "bloody shirt might
have another shake. Then he says the
negroes of Hamburg were bad lot,
terror to all the community in which they
lived. If they were such desperate band
of ruflians as he represents them it is quite
surprising that a couple of young white
bucks should have dared face whole mil
itary company, and insolently demand
passage through their ranks, when there
was ample room to pass by on either side
of the company. No pair of young men
would dare to do such thing to any mill
tary company in these northern States.
The fact that the young Georgia sprigs OF
chivalry did undertake this is evidence that
the negroes were not objects of terror,
were not disposed to be disordery or
quarrelsome towards the whites, bit were
so peaceably inclined that those who now
charge them with being ruffians, outlaws
and rioters, were not afraid to insult them
and show their contempt for them in the
manner they did. Butcher Butler can
neither make men of intelligence believe
that the negroes had themselves murdered
for political effect, nor that the negroes
were ruflianly set when two whites would
dare insult the whole company. He can
not escape the infamy which rests upon
him in connection with this matter by any
such pretexts. Nevertheless he lustifies
himself boldly. says he has no apologies
to make, and would do the same thing
again in similar circumstances. In his
letter he says:
1.-THE negroes had assembled riotously; were il
. state of armed resistance to the laws, and any
citizen or number of citizens had the right to dis
perse the rioters and suppress the riot and to use
just so much force as was necessary to accomplish
it, and if every negro engaged in the riot had been
killed in the suppression, it would have been ex.
cusable, if not justifable.
The tribunal of the written law had been ap.
piled to, and ignominionsly failed. Delay would
have been fatal to the safety Of the lives, families
and property of the unoffending, peaceablc citi
zens Prompt, short, sharp and decisive action
WAS necessary, under the dictates of that unwrit-
ten, inalienable law, known as preservation
the first of all laws Some there may have been,
Wuo Wcic Stau VI I'll opportunity W Puu'SA sA0SS
who had accumulated wrongs insults and out
RACES upon them, such as have enumerated.
can sympathize with them, if cannot approve
such means of vindication.
have upon previous occasion explained how
and why was in Hamburg. l did not nothing
there which regret, or for which have any
apologies to make, and would do again just wht
l did them
In this extract the spirit of the southern
democrats towards the negroes is appar-
ent. They have no apologies to make for
the shedding of negro blood. They justi-
fly the killing and outraging of them when
the negroes stand in their way politically,
and that is whenever they attempt to vote
the republican ticket.
Tried before any fair tribunal Butcher
Butler would have to suffer the penalty
due to an assassin. In the South his
bloody deeds will lift him into higher i'm
portance. and if Tilden were elected give
him high official seat among the so-called
reformers.
From the New York Herald.