New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1877-05-23
THE MISSISSIPPI MARTYRS
FIRING THE AMERICAN HEART

The Cleveland Leader of the eighteenth
makes the following comments on the
news item that announced the death of
young Cornelia Chisholm of the wounds
inflicted upon her by party of Senator
Lamar's heightened constituents few
days ago:
Cornelia Chisholm is dead. She died
of gangrene, the report say, resulting
from the lack of that medical attendance
which might have saved her life. When
her little brother was killed in his fathers
arms at the Jail, Mrs. Chisholm was COM
PEELED to obtain a permit from the lead
ers of the mob to bury him. Being ''chiv-
airy" they will hardly refuse to allow the
interment of this female victim. The
grave will receive the mortal remains of
this heroic girl. 1t will hide her limbs,
torn with bullets, her young face all
bruised by the blow of chivalrous fist,
perforated with chips of lead from the
broadsides fred against the Jail bars,
blackened by discharges from the guns
she pushed away from her fathers breast
with her brave hands. Governor Stone
'could not consent" that Captain Shaugh-
nessey should go to her rescue with an
escort and carry her away from the mob
who watched the house in which she lay,
and kept the family disturbed by their
threats. Self-government, as established
by the Mississippi shotgun policy, means
only the maintenance of Democratic as
tendency. Republicans are left to the
mercy of assassins. Even when they lie
wounded unto death, the Democratic ex-
ecutive "can not consent" to allow them
to be removed from the power of their in
human foes to friends and safety. We
have before alluded to what the Spring
| field Republican says is the 'compensa-
tion" for this tragedy-that il seems to
develop the fact that the best public sem
timent in the South no longer sympathizes
with nor will condone such violation Of
law. The Southern papers are full of
gush, but III. V. R" says, in letter to
the Cincinnati Commercial, Nobody will
be punished. Indeed, if other white Re-
publicans in Kemper county escape, they
will do we'll"
There is no excuse or palliation for this
crime. The people of Mississippi are on
trial before the country. If they will take
measures to satisfy justice by bringing to
summary punishment the assassins at
whose hands this martyred girl and her
friends were put to death, the country will
begin to believe in the efficacy of their
local laws. But if this crime is suffered
to pass as the Coushatta massacre did, il
the "best people in the South, who de-
plore these outrages freely il, the public
prints, do not crush out the lawless class
and annihilate them as the Molly Ma.
guires were annihilated, then it will be
the pledged duty of President Hayes tc
see that it is done, and the whole North,
at least, will sustain him. 1t is incredible
that Americans should be found SO lost to
all sense of honor and manhood as to com
nit such crimes, but it is even more in
credible and infinitely more disgraceful
that community should exist in Americi
in which they can be committed with i'm
punity.
The Washington EUeni,lg Star, con
servative paper at the capital, on the SIX
teenth instant, published a letter fron
Miss Chisholm to friend in that city
In commenting thereon, and on the new
of her death, it says:
If similar butcheries continue to occu
in the South, and the murderers are al
lowed to go unwhipt of justice, q
. they invariably are, q universal protes
Will be raised in the North against tn
| persecution Of men in the South fo
opinions sake. The honor of the Sout
and of the whole nation demands the pur
} ishment of political assassins. Gordo
! and Lamar have something at stake,
officials of the Governor Stone STAN
have not, in seeing that the President
Southern policy is not made odiou
through the North and West by the fai
} ure to punish the guilty persons in thos
partisan murders.
, The Chicago Post of the nineteent
says:
The fate of Cornelia Chisholm typife
one of two things-either mob rule i
Mississippi that is imperial, or a Stat
f government that is corrupt in every pal
with cowardice which we can not ur
derstand. Two hundred men assaulte
an imprisoned man and his family. The
3 riddled the father with bullets; the
killed his son; they wounded daughter
and with malignant cruelty kept from he
. the surgical aid necessary to save her life
Furthermore, says correspondent fror
, the place of massacre, there was no sym
. pathy in the community for the victims
y AO uSniAo " PUNISH tuo uuIueIeIt Du
! if anything, rather a purpose to excue
the crime OF public indignation ther,
were no indications. The Governor Q
> the State has leisurely surveyed the field
2 and with that effort will probably end hi
{ immediate attention to the affair. Fo
? thN. rest there will remain only the una
venl ed blood of the poor girl who die
( with her brother in defending thei
, father; and the father who, if he escape
: another attack, may live, though it is nc
expected, to mourn the loss Of children
slaughtered by the two hundred brav
Mississippians. If the South expects re
generation by this system it will furel
a TAIL, for blood compels nothing good IN
less it be the vengeance of the law, am
law in this State seems, so far, q statutOr
: farce. Northern vitality will not risk th
hazard of such communities, and North
ern brain and Drawn will turn to NOR
hospitable sections. The North appre
ciates the heroism Of a woman. 1t de
spises the eowardice of her two hundre,
murderers, of the community which en-
courages and justifies their crimes and Q
the officials who permit them to go un
punished.
Says Murat Halstead, in the Cincinnati
Commercial:
1t is reported that Governor Stone. O
Mississippi, after his iunketing at Match
ez, visited the scene of the recent TRACES
in Kemper county, and gave it as his opin
ion that it will not do ''to stir the thin
up meaning, we suppose, that it vii
not do to attempt to arrest, try and pun