New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1876-10-13
WADE HAMPTON As AN ExH0RTER.

MS peculiar ntneSS TO sway tuc scoPIio Va
his reconstructed State. A: the risk OF
sug costing a paradox, we insist that Cen
e1al Hampton finds the political stand
from which he speaks an anxious seat,
and it requires all his ingenuity to recon-
cile his position as candidate on an ex-
elusive white ticket with his appeals to
the colored people to support him. But
be is carrying out his conception
with gallantry which, in a man Of
more limited mental resources would,
perhaps. be called efrontery. In this
campaign, however, he doss not ap-
pear before the people as the cockspur
cavalier mounted on a prancing steed, as
he did when commanding the ''army Of
observation" in the rear of Sherman's
legions in 1865. For on that historic oc-
casion he kept at a safe distance from the
hostile guns, and halted and started his
tattered battalions at the signals sounded
by the bugles of his antagonist. He is,
on the present occasion, sounding his own
bugles, and addressing his music most
especially to the ears of his colored con-
stituency. He feels SO sure of the white
smudsills' of South Carolina that he
does not waste much time on them. Being
engaged in recruiting colored voters, be
deyotes himself to his work with zeal
which would be commendable in re-
vivalist preacher or temperance lecturer
General Hampton approaches his work
in an entirely new fashion for him. He
has laid aside the vinegar cruet and taken
up the honey pot. The colored people are
his friends. This is proved by the man
ner he has treated them. When the old
slaves, from whom and their ancestors he
and his family had derived every dollar
they ever possessed. were at last freed
from the legal spoliation that made him
rich and kept them poor, there was fair
prospect opened up of deserted planta-
tons and helpless owner Of unproduc-
tive lands. He, therefore, proposed
business copartnership, the terms Of which
were that he should furnish the lands and
the negroes the labor, and that there
should be division of the products be-
tween them, he taking, of course,
the lions share. Upon the prin-
ciple that half loaf is better than no
bread, General Hampton professed him
self satisfied with giving up to those who
earned it part OF the fruits which he
had heretofore taken entire. For this
great condescension he now comes before
his tenants, pleads the articles of part
neryhip as voluntary and meritorious
act on his part, calls them "colored
brothers," and in order to further show
his good intentions, magnanimously
offers to be their Governor on as low and
terms as can be promised by
any strictly drst-class politician in South |
Carolina.
Even the fact that it is safe for the col |
ored people to come to the Democratic
meetings and hear him glorify himself, is
urged as great point in his favor, and he
illustrates in one place his heroic and
patriotic conduct in defense of the right
If colored citizen to even ask questions
It a political gathering by skillfully con-
rived anecdotes of what had happened
n another place.
We see in all this great capacity of
daptation to surrounding circumstances.
General Hampton has been looked upon
s the very embodiment of the highest
ype of Southern aristocracy. His per-
onal vanity and over-weaning pride of
7ealth and education carried him to the
sngth OF rejecting the poor whites Of his
wn section as factors in the problem Of
tate government He held them useful
, sort Of latent, torpid manner, some
ming to build upon, and illustrated his
fly pretensions by declaring them the
ludsills of Southern society. In these
avs his recently discovered "colored
rothers' were highly valued machines,
lore useful than mules, because in every
ne Of them he saw three-ffths of unit
Federal representation; besides, their {
Intelligence made them handy in hun 8
red ways. Of course it never occurred @
} this proud nabob that any Of them had
'uls to save, intelligent minds to develop t
: human rights to protect. They had t
1t then been given the ballot, and were I
no sense his "coiored brothers, i
But Hampton is no Bourbon. He is no q
,litical Achilles to sulk in his tent and '
his fields be overrun with weeds. If a
} can not ride roughshod over the necks o
slaves he can and will make use of his f
perior intelligence to draw by fair words Il
ose profits from the colored people fl
lich the law no longer permits him to r
Ike by force. He is so far in advance of il
g average Southern Democrat that he v
n, without much loss of dignity, stand n
} before an audience of colored people t.
ID address them, 'my friends" He has b
rived at the point Of progress where he r;
willing to exchange iattering words for c,
lored votes, bit has not got so far as to | Il
y to his ''colored brothers," "yote for ft
and we will vote for you." Like Gen. Sc
ii Nichols Of Louisiana, he has moth re
3 at present to offer but honeyed words N
d vague promises Our colored people d
re call that "chin music, and advise ii
adidates for such high Office as Gov fe
Tor to 60 back and bring something more L