National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1879-11-17
SOUTHERN DEoENox AND LOYALTY.


The Richmond State is about as unrecon-
structed a piece of property as can be found
In the South outside of Bob TooMBs' boots.
We gave specimen of its loyalty aud de-
votion to the Union and its respect for this
Government and people on Saturday morn
ing which shows the intensity of its hatred
for the North in a remarkable degree. 1t puts
the hot end of the poker mt us in ruthless
manner IL represents General GRANT ms
the embodiment of rude and uncultured
civilization. 1t charcterizes the people of
the North as the worshipers of golden
calf or u brazen monkey. 1t charges the
North with taking the objects of their ad-
oration from the prize-ring or out Of q
walking contest. The people of the North
are insulted with the remark that they
gather their heroes from the yilest slums,
instead of hunting for them down n line of
ancestry extending from the present chiv-
alric race in Virginia TO the criminals, male
and female, who planted the germs of Vir-
| ginia society in the first settlement of
jamestown. This, perhaps, is defect in
taste from which the North suffers in its
ancestral glory. If so, then so be it.
The State insists that Generals GRANT,
SHERMAN and SHERIDAN are "nobodies,"
hoping, no doubt under such malediction
to blot their names from the roll of honor
in the Nation. That piece of journalistic
omamentation thus mistakes hatred for
good will, epithet for argument, and bill
lingSgate for the more elevated plane of
decency and proprcty, and makes itself an
object of contempt No one should envy
the crown it is weaving for itself from the
gems of vulgar abuse and senseless traduc-
tion which seem to compose its principal
stock in trade
Our sweet-scented cotemporary, who
would as soon dare to suicide rs to indulge
in such utterances in the face of the North
anywhere outside the boundaries of seces-
sion and rebellion, some weeks ago went to
the confessional on the subject of Southern
outroges in this wise:
The most serious obstacle in the way to a
general Democratic triumph in the country,
ana the restoration, through that means, of the
era of good feeling as well as the re re-establish-
, mcnt of good government by return to the
, first principles which underly our Republican
|
0 | the Gulf States. The Shotgun policy, in
cluding ballot-box stutiing and negro intimi-
datiOp, known as bull-doZing, which has been
practiced in those States has been the scandal
t of the party, and cost it ten times all that was
/ ever gained by 1t, that can be attained
through such criminal means, no matter how
| long continued or to what extreme car
ried. So long as there is any suspicion
at the North that unfair methods
are used in those States to deprive the negro,
!, who is of course naturally Republican, of his
constitutional right to vote as he may desire
Q to exercise that right, or that there is danger
, to his personal safety through his open profes.
sion of a particular political faith, just so long
will the Democratic party have to contend
a against North made solid by this blind and
n ruinous policy, and just so long, too, will the
. threat hang over the country of another civil
conflict, in which the final settlement Of this
e veXed question Will be the issue to be fought
: out, and the utter subversion or our American
system tho inevitable result.
\ Here all that has been charged by the
North upon the South is openly confessed
, The shotgun policy, bull-dozing, negro in-
timidation and ballot-box stufling rs char
acteristics of Southern Democratic politics
are all admitted, though heretofore they
have met q general and firm denial on the
part of the Democrats in that section. Thi:
I establishes the fact beyond question that
the North had sufficient cause for soldfy,
p ing itself against a solid South which had
been made so through these admitted agen.
- cies. 1t does more-it teaches the North
that the Southern Democrats can be NJ
;, more trusted now than when they had arm
:, in their hands making bloody war against
!, the Union; and the lesson extends beyoni
q this point to that which admonshes tn
. North that it cannot safely relax its hole
upon the power which it has gained in tn
>, recent elections.