The Portland daily press., 1879-01-31
THE PRESS.
FRIDAY MORNING, JANUARY 81.
Southern Testimony.

CUuGncTu leStlMCnys
The South Carolina bull-dozers are not
making strong defense before the Teller
committee. Many of them deny there is any
truth in the allegations Of fraud and iutimi-
dation; but the NorIhern people have learned
by long experience the worthlessness of a
Southern denial. Others partially admit the
charges, and say In excuse of ballot-box stuff
fing, that the negroes make up faces at the
whites and jeer, and that negro congrega-
tions refuse to listen to preacher of their
own color, who has voted the Democratic
ticket. This is intimidation of Democrats.
according to the view of the Southern whites,
and must be resisted with fire and sword.
Most of the South Carolinians see, however,
the absurdity of this plea, and SO do not
make it, contenting themselves with a fiat
denial. The facts are against them, ,ir is true.
but facts are never suffered to prevent a
Southern denial
The South was never yet a trustworthy
witpess in its own behalf. Most of US remem-
ber how 1t denied the evils OF slayeh olding.
how it denounced what it was pleased to cali
the falsehoods of ''Uncle Toms Cabin.n
how it insisted that the slaves were happy
and well-treated and anxious to remain in
bondage, how it pictured with delight the
patriarchal character of the slaye-owners
and set them forth as kindly and benevolent
men giving their time and wealth to the
civilization Of the savage African. We all
know now that "Uncle Toms Cabin'' was
rather an underdrawn than overdrawn
picture OF the horrors of slavery, and that
half the barbarism and cruelty of those days
was never told. We remember too, how pre-
sistently the outrages on tree settlers in
Kansas were denied, how the tales Of the
mobbing of Northern emigrants were de-
nounced as lies, how the jayhawkers and
border rufians that followed Atchinson and
Stringfellow were represented by the South
ern press as peaceable citizens prevented
from making homes for themselves by
Northern abolitienists supplied with Sharp's
rifles by the fanatical pulpts of the North,
We know now that the stories of the murder
and mobbng of Northern settlers were true.
and that the Southern leaders knew them to
be true at the time. We all recollect the
fierce denials of the South that 1t abused
Northern prisoners of war, as we recollect
the sight of the starving survivors of the
prison-pens OF Andersonville and remember
the terrible recital of their misery.
Later we have heard the South deny with
brazen effrontery, and in the face of over
whelming evidence, the existence of the Ku-
Klux. Now they deny, in the same manner.
the political tyranny exercised in the South
and the terrorization of the negro. Their
denunciations of the stories of bull-dozipg
and ballot-box stufing are as sweeping and
vehement as were their denunciations of the
stories of the horrors of slavery and the out
RACES upon the free-soilers of Kansas. Now
as then they deny the strongest evidence,
And now as then they find in the North sym-
pathizers and apologists and men who for
political reasons affect to believe them. But
they are discredited witnesses, repeatedly
convicted OF falsehoood, and their testimony
is as OF little weight as the breath which ut
tiers it,. No man who has studied the history
of the South can, in the light OF knowledge
thus gained, place any reliance upon its word
when it is pu: upon defense or believes its in
terests will suffer by truth-telling.