The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1880-12-02
Should the South Remain Solid P

Since the election number ofour Repub
lican cotemporarieshaye been laboring to per
suade the Southern people that the interests
of the South lie in division, and not in uni.
ty. To state this proposition seems to be
almost enough to refute it. 1t is true that
a sectional division of parties is most untor-
| tunate for the country, and that every effort
| ought to be made to avoid such division.
| But if the stronger section is 'solid" against
the weaker the weaker simply has no choice.
The solid South is formidable element in
politics. A divided South would be weak
in proportion to the extent of the division,
and the break up of the South can not posi-
bly, come about except by the substitution OF
other issues for the sectional issue upon which
the Republicans have made their canvass.
1t is not sufficiently borne in mind, even
by disputants who mean to be quite fair in
discussing the interests OF the South, that
the opposition of Southern communities to
Republican rule is in great part matter of
selfpreservation. InStates like Mississippi,
Louisiana and South Carolina, Republican
State governments mean simply a govern
ment of thieves. 1t is simply not possible
that any respectable and industrious person,
who only asks of government that it shall
protect him in his lawful business and secure
to him the fruits of his labors, should be a
Republican in State politics. If the case is
not so bad in other Southern States, the rea-
son simply is that in those States there is no
danger of the Republicans getting control of
the State governments. For this state of
things the Republican party is responsible,
since the attempt of the Republican party
Southern States brought 1t about. If the |
ground which General Hancock took at New |
Orleans had been taken by Congress, and the |
local law, except that part of which related |
to slavery, had been left to be administered by |
the local courts, it would have been possible |
for the Southern people to separate State pol
tics and National politics, and to support a
or a free trader, a strict con-
,tructionist or an advocate of liberal inn
Federalist or a Democrat,
without helping to hand over the govern
nent of his own State to gang of criminals.
But Congress, and not the South, chose to
make the interests of the Republican party
n the South identical with the interests Of
and Moses and Kellogg and
Madison Wells, and to make it impossible for
my respectable and representative Southern
nan to belong to the Republican party.
Every man in one of the plundered South
I'm States who should assist in bringing
,ack the scoundrels of the period of Recon-
truction would be looked upon rs public
nemy. He would be public enemy, and
o long as this danger exists, SO long as the
ause of the carpet-baggers is the cause of
he Republican party in the South, SO long
t is quite certain that the South cannot,
will not and ought not to cease to be solid
gainst the Republican party.
1t will be seen that this feeling, which
ervades the whole South, has nothing
ecessarily to do with the bitterness left by
be war. 1t results, not from the spirit of
ebellion, but from entirely practical con-
iderations. The business interests" Of the ,
forth, it is insisted by the Republicans,
rere in favor of Garfield. The Cuisines |
1terests" of the South were unquestionably, :
nd were perceived by everybody to be, in !
lvor of Hancock. Assuming that business '
len in both sections were agreed in desiring
maintain the existing situation, and that s
le existing situation to business men in :
he North meant a continuance of the t
nancial policy of the Hayes administration,
business men in the South it meant an
'surance that characterless vagabonds
lould not again be made their governors
nd legislators and judges. In the nature
things the Republican party could and
ould give them no such assurance. If the
epublicans really desire to break up the
lid South, of which there is some doubt,
ley must devise some method by which
tate politics in the South can be separated
ON Federal politics, and. they must pre-
mt some issues on which interest or
ntiment will induce the Southern people c
divide. They have not made promis- t
g beginning towards either of those t
by appealing, throughout t
leir whole canvass, for a solid North p
Offset and in some way to punish the 5
lid South. which could not possibly have 7
,en otherwise than solid against them. il