Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1881-05-03
Views Of Prof. B. Puryear.

The following letter to the Philadel.
phia american by Prof. B. Puryear of
the Baptist College of Richmond we
have published before, and re- publish it
now by special request:
RICHMOND COLLEGE, RICHMOND VA, I
January %, 1881. !
To the Editor of the american;
Sir,-Your late favor, requesting my
views on certain topics, was duly re-
ceived. do not deem it necessary to
reply to your inquiries seridtins, but
will so express myself as in effect to
embrace them.
The people of the North, you tell us,
complain of the ''solid South" and
wish to destroy this solidity. It seems
to me that the first thing to do is to as
certain the cause of this state of things
| in the SOuth-thOugh may remark, in
passing. that the North is about as solid
as the South.
The people of the South, at the close
of the war, accepted its results in good
faith, and were prepared TO return to
their duty as law abiding citizens. In
their ingenious simplicity, they sup
posed that as the North had fought for
the maintenance of the Union the first
consideration would be its eternal in-
tegrity. Instead of this, hswever, the
Federal Constitution, which was the
bond of union. YVES Immediately assailed
and overthrown by the dominant North,
now flushed with victory and thirsting
| for vengeance. Then commenced the
hideous war of reconstruction-a war
waged with muskets and cannon on an
unarmed and PROSTATE people. Amend
ments to the Federal Constitution were
declared to be ratified which simply de-
strOyed that once sacred instrument.
The Federal Government, by virtue of
these amendments, really prescribes the
qualifications of suffrage in the States,
and is actually present at elections in
the States to control the results. The
Constitution of our fathers is thus com
pletely overthrown; State autonomy is
dead. Over the grave of the Confeder-
ated Republic, as formed century ago,
floats triumphant the flag of a consoli-
dated despotism. Under the operations
of these pretended amendments q saw
age race, in large numerical majority
in several of the southern States, is lift
ed in moment into citizenship, armed
with the ballot, and, in many cases,
goaded and stimulsted by the Federal
Government, its agents and emissaries,
into wrath, lawlessness, and crime.
They were taught to believe-and they
did believe-that the whites of the South
were their irreconcilable enemies, whom
they might injure and insult as they
pleased. These semi barbarians, in
famed with wrath and hatred, and su-
premely incompetent to the duties of
citizenship, were thus made the govern
ing majority. Such sight the world
had never seen before; such an act of
cruelty and wrong finds no analogue in
all the annals of crime. If pillage, plum
der, arson, murder, rape-which, FL indeed,
largely fOllOwed-had at once become
universal throughout the South, the
law would not have been more guilty
than it is, for it was the logical tendency
of the law to produce exactly these and
similar results. That these results did
not fully and everywhere ensue is due
to cause more potent than human stat
the declaration of the law; but the ne
gro, governed by his God-given in
stincts, refused to accept the boon, and
denied the doctrine. In the presence
of a race superior to him by birth and
blood, instinct with the doctrines and
traditions of civil and constitutional
freedom. the negro, though frequently
galvanized by inf1ammatory rhetoric
into spasmodic courage, and braced by
the promise and expectation, in the SUI
preme crisis, of foreign sympathy and
aid, realized, after a few years of con-
vulsive struggle, that political rule was
not his role, and that his only security
was to be found in his natural place Of
acknowledged inferiority. This is the
lesson, Mr.. Editor, that he has learned,
or is learning; quite different lesson
you taught him, or attempted to teach.
Now, when millions of these negroes.
born and raised as slaves, were turned
loose among us, and armed with the
ballot, inflamed with hate, their sense
of wrong quickened and intensified by