Wilmington daily commercial., 1876-10-24
SHALL THE SOUTH FALL A PREY TO
THE FIRE-EATERs ONCE MORE!

The E1hE-EAIEhS ONCE MOhE
No real friend of the South but must pray |
for the defeat of the scheme of violence |
upon which Wade Hampton hopes to ride
into the control of South Carolina and Mr..
Tilden into power at the White House.
Full of disasters to the Republic generally
as their election must be, the evils would
be visited in the greatest degree upon the
South, and if any one could feel himself
the inveterate enemy of that fair and fruit
full half of our common country, he could
not call down upon it a worse fate than to
fall again into the clutches of the fanatical
element who in times past, again and again,
have overridden the Judgment and the con-
victlons of the quiet and law-abiding peo-
Pile, and have spurred forward on the broad
way to ruin.
For the present state of affairs in South
Carolina is exactly paralleled in the history
of the past. 1t is the old story over again
of the furious tactics of the worst to ter
rorize the better elements. Years ago, the
Union Wings at the South would have re-
sisted all attempts to organize Treason in
the interests of Slavery. They combatted
Oalhoun's efforts to disseminate the poison
of States Rights. They even, early in the
century, entertained the hope that Slavery
might be peacefully extinguished. They
formed class whose principles approached,
if they were not founded upon, the immor-
tai doctrines that give the Republic its vir-
tue and its value, and they would have
been willing to seek, by straightforward
if not by swift means, to make the
Union ultimately homogeneous, peaceful,
and fraternal, on the basis of an impartial
system of laws. But the Southern Wings,
after being forced to concede one point
after another after renouncing all the real
convictions that they held, and abandoning
every principle to which they were really
devoted went down before the onset Of
the States Rights hatchers OF Secession
and. sprinklers of blood. The calm men,
therfair men, the men from whom Freedom
might have won something, and to whom
the Republic might have looked for patri
otto support, were ground to powder by the
Calhouns, the Rhetts, the Yanceys, the
Keitts-all the brood whose hot and hideous
purposes eliminated in the horrors OF
bloody sectional war 1t was in their tr-
umph IN tho defeat of her better and
wiser and more patriotic sons that the
South suffered untold injury.
And again, in 1861, the South was dragged
to the field Of slaughter. Terror and intim-
idatioa were required to oonsummate tho
formal acts of secession by which the rebel
States pt9tendej 70 leave the Union. Thou
sands Of her men say the fatal mistake be
fore il was committed and held back until
they could no longer resist. II Was at ''the
expense of ten thousand precious lives"
says Nj. Greeley in his history, that " ap-
parent unanimiryn was secured for Seces-
sion, before the War began, and 1t has a
vivid interest to us to read, now, from u
letter written to the New York Herald, from
Charlesson in November, 1860, that armed
men then ruled South Carolina, and to find
the letter saying that " there is not ham
let in the State that has not it's squad either
of mounted men or infantry. They are
drilling every night, &e.. &C., a picture OF
to-day that is indeed an exact photograph.
Alexander 81. Stephens, in 1860, declared
that Secession was unjustiied and thou
sands of Southern men echoed his words
but the wave of pro-slayery fanaticism, al
wild, as proscriptive, and as cruel as the
fAnaticism of the Moslem hordes who
scourged mankind in past ages flowed oyel
them, and by force of arms-the same
force that Wade Hampton and his bloody
handed lieutenants now show and use il
South Carolina-secured an apparent unit
of Secession feeling and purpose. which il
fact never really existed. In .tha
further triumph Of the fire-eating elemen
of the South lay a second sad injury infiict
ed upon her.
We have come, as we have said, to
third case OF the sort. The question recui
whether the Conservative people in til
South-such as those who, though attache
to the Democratic party in South Carolins
adyocated the unanimous reelection c
C,ya,nor Chamberlain - whether ono
more this class, who seek to build up an
NOT to destroy, are to be trodden under tn
hsels of the outlaw class 1t is plain ths
there are thousands of men i'll all th
Southern States who perceive now, as I'll
old Wings perceived. and as the Unionista {
1869 did, that every consideration Of patr
ottsm and every material interest leaC
them TO establish fraternal Union on tt
basis OF justice 20 all classes, and not
raise again tie black flag and sour
aglln the toesin OF Sectional Hatre
A: thia moment there are many Confede
ate soldiers, men, ~ho, when their eau
was lost, give it up in good faith forevt
that are looking TO tie party Of Nation
Uai5n as the organization winch can tru
pac.fy and regenerate the south. Some
the strongest, ablest and most since
members OF the Republican party bel,