The comet. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1877-1882, 1879-04-12
THE GREAT UNDEhOURRENT.

"the the greatest Boou 10 the SreaUesI nuh-
' ber"-who, having no fellow feeling with the
aeraran, yet thinks that the hardy sons and
daughters of toll are the chief subjects for
the consideration and care of government
he may find him in this writer.
The rich can manage to get along in any
government. They can readily adjust
themselves to any administration. 1t is the
poor man who needs the fostering hand of
the government to be stretched out over
him to shield and protect and guide. Any
legislation which is inimical to the poor
any measure which tends to magnify their
burdens, (already great enough,) is cruel
and monstrous, and tends to fatal sapping
of the foundation of the prosperity of
country.
The Government of the United States has
achieved a financial success. Resumption
has resumed Its paper money is equal to
gold, and better than silver. 1t sounds
grandly in the manifesto. 1t reads well in
print. 1t is a success, and nothing succeeds
like success. But suppose we follow along
the road which the administrators of the
government pursued in order to reach the
goal of success. If we do this, We will
probably find that to come to this high~
sounding resumptionary status, we had to
march over the mangled and scattered re-
mains of the assets and little fortunes of
the masses. is resumption by the govern
ment a sufficient panacea for the consump~
ton of the people? Does the naked fact
that the governments promises to pay are
at par, and her bonds at a premium, afford
any compensation for the financial destruc-
ton of the rank and file, the bone and
sinew, of the land?
There has been monstrous mistake in
the financial management of this govern
ment. A rich government, and poor peo-
pie, is a condition not in harmony with the |
doctrine of our fathers, or the genius of |
America. History tells us that nero |
fiddled while Rome was burning" Let not |
the rulers of this country be guilty of a |
supreme folly like this. Let them not hug |
the fatal delusion to their bosoms that all is
we'll while they are rolling in luxury and
ease, and the people are grooming under
a discrimination and class legislation
which makes their loads too heavy to bear.
Let them not take to their souls the unctious
comfort that these rumblings of discomfort
all over the land are the mouthings of dis
appointed office-seekers and soreheads.
There is Great Undercurrent of dissatis-
faction whose volume threatens to become
irresistible. There is a powerful senti>
ment that demands change, and it is not
safe to ignore it. The prayer of the peo-
pie to tho Government is for relcase-re-
lease of their Threats from the suffocating n
grasp of the insatiate and remorseess ,
bond-holders and money-rings. Their cries :
are not without cause, and they should be @
heard.
Resumption, though success, is disas- >,
trously premature. It came at a time when ;,
it impoverished the people, and largely and n
enriched the favored class.
It establishes an oligarchy of money, and =,
,ives to the favored few an undue power Il
,ver the masses. 1t fortifes the policy of :
making the rich richer and the poor poorer. A.
Here in the South, in the olden time, many :,
If our hardest masters succeeded best, aps
1arently, but they failed to take any &C. -,
count of the cost of success in tears, -,
stripes, privation and human anguish. -;
But they succeeded Colossal fortunes o
we're built up without thought as to the -
earful cost in the gradual crucifxion of hui A.
nanity. Cruel masters, who defended :,
lavery as ''divine institution" forgot the :.
ruo essence OF our blessed Redeemer, and e,
hat divinity was blended with humanity. -,
hey struck out for success, and they were j.,
What mattered it to them, in fo
heir affluent ease and luxury if hundred n,
= so of their slaves suffered with cold, hun 8,
er, privation and separation? All the world ~
1oked upon them with homage. Their Az
YES had been successes. ~
But what is success won upon false .,
Principle and through the perverson of the :,
loblest and best of human instincts worth? =,
Ask the once potent slave oligarchist =,
Where stands he now? Suppose there had :,
,een less dogmatism and more of judg- a,
nent in our treatment of the question of l.
lavery, and suppose there had been less :,
jelfshness and more of humanity in our
reatment of the slaves themselves, would :
he war upon it have ever borne down upon =
is with such an overshadowing anger? !
But we of the South had made a success
# the institution of slavery, and we did !.
lot propose to countenance any man or
nation of men who could not look through
1ur eyeglasses, or tolerate any argument or
opinion that clashed with ours. The divin-
ty of the institution drifted into idolatry.
The scales of justice had no counterbalanc-
ng weight on one side. The laws Of :,
humanity were tranlpled under foot. But '
our people went on succeeding better and
better. Every year the tax rolls we're en- :
arged. Every year new fields were open -
ID, and new ''hands" found Slowly, inn -
but most unerringly, was the
aith of friends shaken in the divinity of "
lavery. "divine institution" needed no y
UGH legal safeguards as we had, to save it. -
)ne by one, the friends of slavery were p
riven from its support by the intolerance, =
buse, and terrorism of its interested adher- n
nts. Gradually the hostile sentiment grew, Il
nd the more it grew the more it was fed,
ntil it ripened into vast maelstrom Of
lmost universal conviction, stirring up a
nightly host of foes, and slavery went out
a sea Of blOod-the victim of its own n