Perrysburg journal. (Perrysburg, Wood Co., O. [Ohio]) 186?-1965, 1879-10-31
Who Are the Southern Leaders2

There are some excellent Southern
gentlemen, in Congress and out of it,
who are very much shocked at manifes-
tations of Southern lawlessness, like
the shooting of postmaster in Black
vile, the expulsion of postmistress
from Grenada, hemurder of Dixon, and
the murder of the Chisholms; but are
still more indignant at the Northern
newspapers which make the facts pub.
lie. "Why," they ask, twill the Rad
ical press persist in sowing discord be-
tween the sections by harping on these
unfortunate occurrencesP There are
bad and violent men in the South, as
there are everywhere else, but they are
not the representatives of Southern
character. We have right to demand
that we shall be judged by our best peo-
pie and not by our worst.
This would be a reasonable remon-
STRANGE but for the inconvenient cir
cumstance that the bullies and men of
blood have taken the management of
Southern politics into their hands and
are not only running the administra-
ton of "home ruleh after their pecu-
liar fashion, but are applying the same
NlOlCub nlCIllOuo w IllC SONbi hiliChO VI
the whole country. The manner in
which they see fit to elect Congressman
and legislators and to treat Federal
officers concerns not themselves alone,
but us too. The bulldozer applies the
shotgun not merely to the correction
of the political opinions of the local
"niggers," but also to the subjugation
Of the free North. Every political out
rage in South Carolina and Mississippi
is in effect an attack upon Northern
ballot boxes. Every Southern gentle
man who is sent to Congress by ter
rorized constituency, to make laws for
the whole Nation, is practically repeat.
ing the bludgeOn work which Preston
Brooks applied to his controversy with
Charles Sumner. 1t is the height of in
science to ask us to submit to it in
silence.
Southern gentlemen, so long as they
take Office by the help of such outrages
have no right to hold themselves above
the perpetrators. There is more thar
one Southern Senator whose credentials
are dyed in blood. There is one who il
known to have been in league will
gangs of desperate men to establish 10y
| lawless violence the State Government
which afterwards sent him to Washing
ton. Yet no Southern Democrat think
the worse of these gentlemen becaus
they have stopped to take advantage o
fraud and murder. They do not thinl
the worse of themselves. In truth
there is no vigorous public condemna
ton of political outrages in the South
ern States. Violence is sometimes la
mented, because it has bad lool
abroad, or because it disturbs the com
munity, or from some such feeling a
moved the engine-driver when he salt
he hated to run over a man-it musseC
up the track so. But of genuine indig
nation at political mob violence ther
is hardly a trace. A Mississippi jur,
would not convict the Chisholm mur
derers. Republicans in South Carolin
beg their friends here to say nOthin,
about the murder of Brice, lest the loca
courts and juries refuse to punish tn
assassins "i ii the political features O
their crime are forced into promi
nence."
The South cannot ask to be judged b
her best men until she herself accept
these best men for guides. At preser
they have no perceptible Influence upo
the behavior of their townsmen. The
are models of department whom nc
body initiates. The real leaders ar
the men with the shotguns.-N.
Tribune.