The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1881-04-22
Malone.

There Is certainly some turning of the
tables when the Republicans in the SEN
ate, who have most warmly denounced
the rebel Brigadiers, and insisted upon
strict financial honesty, are found sup
porting repudiating rebel Brigadier as
friend and brother. But the situation
is very explicable. The Republicans do
not support the reputation, and the
rebel Brigadier frankly owns that Tile
war has settled the questions at issue.
In fact, upon this latter point Mr.. Ma
hone occupies a manly and honorable
position. He does notaffect repentance.
He was hard fighter in a cause in
which he believed. He put the decision
upon the wager of battle, and without
sniveling, or hesitating, or counterplot-
ting, or lying in wait for revenge, he ae-
cepts the result. Had other rebel Brig
adiers taken the same course, there
would have been no Southern question.
and the political situation would have
been relieved of its sectional aspect.
But there is still greater significance
in Mr.. Mahone's position. 1t is not
negative only, but positive 1.-THE
South, represented by Messrs. Hill and
Butler and other Senators, is simply the
old South waiting for turn of the tide.
1t is the old sectional, local, provincial
spirit, intolerant, unjust and exclusive,
which passed the Black Codes under
Andrew Johnson. and which is guilty of
the great dishonor of accepting repre-
sentation upon the basis of the whole
population, and then suppressing the
votes of an immense part of it by force
and fraud. Indeed, the democracy "
of Messrs. Hill and others of the same
school is mere. conspiracy against a
flee vote and an honest count.
for ! the pu pose 6f maintaining
the ascendency of the ante bell1m
disposition and leadership. This is
the incubus and paralysis of the
South. While this continues, politics
will be necessarily sectional, and the
progress which requires the eo-opera-
ton Of independent citizens will be in
definitely postponed. So long as parties
are divided by fundamental question,
such as that of the freedom of suffrage,
new party associations are impractica-
BILE. This infexible adherence to a
wrong growing out of the old system of
slavery is well called Bourbonism. It
is the curse of the region in which it
prevails, and the power of Mr.. Ma
homes position is its hostility to Bour-
bonism and it's acknowledgment of the
equal rights of all citizens. His exposureo of
the course of the Southern Democrats
who assumed to call him to account was
very effective, and his denunciation of
them as the real enemies of their sec
ton was most significant because of its
| truth.
The Democratic criticisms upon him
have failed because their point was that
he was Democrat Us Mr.. Hill or Mr.
| Butler are Democrats, and that he was
elected by Democratic Legislature to
represent the Democratic party. But
this is not so. He was elected against
a regular Democratic candidate by a
coalition of Democrats and Republican
Readjusters, and not upon Democratic
| platIorIn. Ills pOSltlOn, therefore, is eS-
sentially one Of independence, like that
of Judge Davis, of Illinois, and to de-
nounce him as Democratic deserter in
the sense that Mr.. Butler might be de-
nounced, was obviously pointless pro-
ceeding. The significance of the whole
affair is not that Democrat has been
bought with patronage, but that Vir-
ginia Senator, elected despite Demo
cratic opposition, has declared for fail
play at the polls. -Harper'S Weekly.