Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1876-06-15
Method in Confederate Madness

There is motive in the apparent malice of
the South, as now manifesting itself in the
violent speeches made at various points on
Confederate Memorial Day." or in the more
Infamous acts recently committed in Northern
Louisiana and Southern Mississippi, in South
Carolina and Georgia, and latest at the Peters
burg, Va, municipal election. There is
method in all this fury and outrage. Let us
see if it can be made plain.
There are two purposes sought: to sire 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 "Whats 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 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 vim
dictive even to extreme unwisdom. The fol-
ly is, on our part, in not seeing that to defeat
man does not necessarily change his opin-
ions; still less does it make community sub
missive. The true policy is to be always ''on
guard tolerant toward the inevitable express
sion, but sternly repressive of all embodiments
thereof that lead to mischief, while sedulous-
y cultivating all forces, ideas, and institutions
which may tend to create other conditions in
the Sonth. This is our duty. Would that
we pursued it as steadily as the Confederate
Democracy do their mischievous courses and
purposes.
Just now they are finding that free institu.
tions have their inevitable effect, in making
more manly and courageous the mass of the
citizens who were enfranchised by the war;
Everywhere, even in Mississippi, 50 lately
overpowered and overawed, the Republicans
of the South are showing that they are more
and more detsSmined to assert themselves,
and to so act together, and vigorously, that
the present one-sided game of intimidation
and murder may be checked and perhaps sup
pressed where it occurs. 1t is the evident
growth of this feeling which has induced the
present revival of violence. The hope of pos
sible triumph at the November election has
led perhaps to undue Station. This may ac-
count for the recent outbursts of rebel spleen
as well as confidence, but it is not necessary
to account 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 ire-obtain-
ed over the Southern States
The Democratic party, as national organ
ization, has been and always will be (while the
Confederate leaders rule) sacrificed to this
purpose. The South, knit together by a sec
tion 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 d.
cide and destroy it. The aim, then, of the
Confederate Democracy is first to keep what
they have got; next to obtain control where
they haze not yet succeeded, and lastly to
unite and chrystallize the sectional and Dem
ocratic South, no matter what becomes of the
party in other portions of the Union.
Under this policy the South is and will con-
tinue to be a menace to tie stability of the
Union, that for which three hundred thousrnd
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 fail to re-
collect also that the Southern Republicans are
the advance guard of that new political civil
ization by the growth of which it is alone pos
sible to make that homogeneous Union, the
existence of which is the best security for the
highest diversity in ideas and policies. Isl