Wilmington journal., 1876-01-07
sES q X ACEA VI.

sHAClAHH.
One of the gravest imputation;
brought against the Southern people
by those whose business has been tx
traduce us, i. that of social proscrip
tlon. We are accused of illiberality
towards strangers and of persecution
for opinions sake. The charge which
they bring against us is. in their own
words, that of social and political os.
trdcisma, And yet no charge could be
more unfounded as we will proceed to
show.
Ostracism, as practiced at Athens,
was an honorable punishment, although
it's penalty was banishment for ten
| years. It was one which was Inflicted
only upon those of her leaders whose
puUlic services or private virtues had
raised to such an influence as to en-
danger the commonwealth. It is be-
! Heyed to have been instituted by Pisis-
| trotus, but this we know that Arlstides
aud Cimon and Themistocles and AL
ciblades and the long line OF statesmen
and soldiers who succesaively rose and
! fell at AthAns, each in turn under
went 1.-THE one because OF his PRINCE
| ly hberaiity, another because OF the
renown of Lis sea6ghts, and another
for his elOquence as an orator, and yet
another for his uprightness as a Judge.
There was therefore nothing degrading
in such sentence; it being at worst
but a splendid exile. Plato speaks of
it as ''the sentence sacred to danger
GUS eminence." At least such it was
originally and such it long continued
to be. until the punishment itself was
degraded at last by being thrown away
upon a worthless demagogua-onc
Hyperboius by name-after which it
fell into contempt and dlsuse.
How totally unlike to all this
whether we look at the form of this
punishment or the character of the Of
fenders-has been the outlawry with
which the Southern people have treat
ed those adventurers vino came here
to enslave, and their native born allies
who stood ready to betray us. Of
course we do not speak of the common
breed of hlrelings which abound III
almost every community, and no.
where more than in Wilmington. We
| are thinking rather of such men as
| Clayton. and Ames, and Bullock as
specimens of the one class. and of
Holden, aid Moses, and Browplow. Of
tbe other. Such men are indeed dan
2erous to the Stare. but Ill quite an
other Way. They possess a. sort Of
! prominence it Is true, out of a KIM
totally unlike that Of any one Of these
lliustrlOuS rivals who s.rove for the
| mastery at Athens. Even such prom
inence as they do possess i'll not nito
9ether such as public Opiuion mas as
signed them. For the popular esti-
mate of them is that they a.e wicked
men, but that they are also great men;
while the truth is that the1e g moth
ing great about them but their wick
edness. Iu the very nature of thin gs
| therefore, there could not aDd has not
fallen to the lot of men like these any
such glorious disgrace As that of os
tracism, and for them TO complain of
t is only to do themselves too much
honor. For there is in guilt such as
theirs unredeemed as it is by their ia
Tents, nothing in common with that of
the ancient Athenian, So much 80 that
we're ostracsm still practlced-wsre
it literally possible to inflct upon such
offenders Punishment for ten years, or
rather as a more suitable 3u0mqsIuni
transportation for life. even i'll that
case we should still miss the weeping
muitltudes which crowded the shores
of Greco to witness the exile, and to
welcome the return of the Idols of the
people.
But however groundless and every
way inadmissable is this charge of Os-
tracism, still we do lot deny that a
certain amount of exclusiveness is
characteristic of our people. But we
l I L l.
theirs and could even wish it W re q
more conspicuous one. For society
everywhere has found it uecessary ID
surround itself with safeguards which,
| though thrown down for a time, must
and will be rebuilt. This is equally
the law of courts and coteries, and is
no more true OF the Eugllsh nobility
of to-day than of our Republican an
cestors. There was a tlme-hOw pain
| fully do W remember it-wheu society
thus constituted and guarded. was the
! pride aud glory of the South. It was
! never a society of birth or of worth. ex-
| cept SO far as these repI esented cul
| ture and refinement, and its doors
were shut tquaily against the taluted
| name, and what Tennyson calls "the
;.ccursed gold that gilds the narrow
| forehead of the fool" It was SUCH
society, as taken all in all, we can
never hope to look upon the like again.
It was exclusive indeed, but no tho
roughbred gentleman was ever heard to
complain of it on that account, for
such a one in any case is always suffi
| cient unto himself. But then, as now,
to complain of it's exclusiveness wa.
the sure mark of the vulgarian and
| the 11arUe7au
Accordingly who are those who now
complain of social prescriptions Are
they not such as have attempted to le-
vel every social barrier and by cheap
ening its privileges, to destroy all 80.
ciety properly so-called And have
they not less reason to complain mas
much as they must, to judge from as
sociation, have already found by the
law of natural selectio0, the only So
ciety for which they are fit ? If we
mistake them not, those who clamol
for social recognition now are the smes
who only year ago attempted to de
luge our churches, schools, hotels and
theatres with a motley throng q