The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1878-08-01
VOL. VII.
HOW NEW ENGLAND BLUNDERS
AND THE S0UIH GROWS WISE.

/ HOW NEW ENGLAND BLUNDERS
AND THE S0UIH GROWS WISE.
One would suppose that Gen. y. P.
Banks was the fiercest, most vigorous
and successful soldier ef the war, and
yet Gen. Banks was not only beaten,
as anybody else would have been by
Stonewall jackson, but was out-gen-
eraled and whipped by Dick Taylor.
Despite all this, Banks wishes to renew
the war. lie would fight his battles
over again. Thrice he would rout all
his foes, thrice would he slsy the slain.
Banks's stupendous failures in crushing
the rebellion may make him believe it
uucrushable. But then there is a
method in Banks's madness. He corcurs
with those good men in Washington who
would make TIlden or Grant Hayes's
successor. Anything for an Eastern
President; anything for representa-
tive man of the bondholders to direct
the course of Federal financial leglsla.
ton! The good Gen. Banks agrees
perfectly with Potter and Randall, and
would evade the discussion of practi-
cal financial questions and re-excite
passions that pervaded the country
from 1860 to 1876. He said in his
speech last week:
Now, instead of making a fight on
these practical questions, upon which
we cannot agree, if there be a rebel
camp in our neighborhood let us un-
earth it and destroy 1t root and branch.
Let us destroy them everywhere, so
that there shall be no hostile power on
hand to divide the country again as it
has been divided. 1t is power rest
less, influential, unprincipled, deter
mined and resolved to possess itself of
the government and conduct it as it
thinks it should be conducted. We
must fight the war over again, and this
time we must make our victory more
decisive. Washington, Jackson and
Lincoln each and all tried to crush it,
but it still lives and its power is yet a
menace to the Republic. Let us direct
our efforts wholly against this, the
greatest evil that we have to contend
with, not giving damn in the mean
while for gold money or paper money.
Applause. / don't know how pOliti-
cal victories are won, although l have
been long time in politics, but this
one must lie won at all hazards, for
the safety of the country demands it.
am for building up the South, but |
am against it if it undertakes to per-
petuate the objects and purposes of
that terrible war which cost us 2,000,-
900 lives and brought us no advan-
tages.
We had thought that Ku kluxism
was extinct; that the White League
was no more; that Southern people
had gone to work as never before. 1t
is generally admitted that the South
is especially averse to war and even to
disorder or undue political excitement
or civil dissensions, and therefore 1t
was the South, through its brigadiers
in Congress that created the electoral
commission and thwarted the purpose
of Northern politicians who preferred a
fight to the peaceful installation of
Hayes. Southern people will give Gen.
Banks no pretext for war-not even
to such a wolf as Banks who pretends
that we, far below, are muddying the
cheerful stream from which he drinks.
1t is very sad, but Gen. Banks must
fail of his purpose. The negro is no
longer in the woodpile, and Banks can
draw from it no faggots with which to
fire the Northern heart. For the flrst
time New England is cornered, and
Banks helpless. For the first time
the South is practical instead of
chivalric. The whooping politi-
clans no longer lead the people
to their ruin. There are none
to listen even if 1t were proposed
to take a negro in the abstract to that
impossible place, Kansas.
Gen. Banks becomes sad driveler.
He is talking nonsense. He cannot di-
vert the South and West from their
proposed alliance, and therefore can
not reproduce defunct questions in
volved in the war between the States.
Too often, already, have Democratic
follies, in asserting to the adoption of
these issues in past conflicts with Re-
publicanism, led US to defeat and hu-1
initiation, and if Gen. Banks will con
over the declaration of purposes de-
fined "a few days ago by Texas party
leaders, he will discover that the plot
against him and his rock-ribbed, tariff
mongering, bondholdlng fellow-New
Englanders extends even to Texas.
Texas refuses to be driven
by threats or denunclations, or by false
assertions of Northern platforms, or of
men like Banks into the defensive or
into the adoption of Southern Sec
tional partisan policy. The South as q
political fact ceases to exist. We are
part and parcel of the Northwest. Let
Mr.. Banks recognize the fact and pre-
pare to fight us fairly, and no more rob
the country of gold while we are quar-
reling about abstract nonsense.
TIE mint committee from the two