Knoxville daily chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1882, 1881-06-04
urge us to cherish only kindly feel>
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urge us to cherish only kindly feel>
ings toward each other.
More than two hundred years ago
slavery was introduced into the
United S ates, and for generations it
had formed one of the hereditary in
situations of the South. A strong
attachment had grown up between
the owners and the owned. This is
not the place nor time to argue the
truth of this proposition; but a SIM
gle fact proves 1t overwhelmingly,
and can never be forgotten by the
white people of the South.
In the late war the white men of
the South were nearly all called away
from their homes to the battlefield;
they left their wives and their child-
rem dependent, not only for support,
but for protection, on the colored
people. The latter knew that their
liberty was involved in the struggle,
and that the success of the
Federal armies was freedom for
them, while success to their
own meant slavery to them yet it
may be stated as a general, indeed,
as an almost uniform fact, that they
were kind, faithful and true to the
unprotected wives and children of
Southern soldiers left almost wholly
at their mercy, and that they labored,
as formerly, to supply them with
food and wi h clothing. This his
toric truth has secured to the colored
race of the South the lasting graft
tude of the Southern white people.
The freedom of the cOlOred race
was the result of a contest between
the two sections on questions of con-
stitutional law and States rights,
neither originating in nor embittered
by any sanguinary uprising or cruel
acts on the part of the emanipated
people.
While the latter are indebted to
the government of the United States
for the precious boon of freedom
and the full rights of citizenship
under wise and impartial laws, the
white people of the South owe to
the constitution and principles OF
that government, as framed by their
fathers, a boon no less benifcent
and still more striking in the history
Of mankind. It is this:
At the close of the war the white
people of the South were, in a mill
tary point of view, as PROSTATE be
fore the North as the Saxons OF
England were in the year 1865 be
fore the Normans under William the
Conquereor. Engendered by the
war, there existed between the two
sections the bitter animosilies always
following such a contest, and there
were not wanting those who sought
to entiame and perpetuate these ami
mosities for their own purposes.
But, notwithstanding all this, the
Southern people were, in ten short
years, restored to their full rights
under the laws and Constitution O
the Union, and placed on the same
plane of civil rights as our Northern
brothers, participating equally in the
control and direction of the Nationa
Government by their own chosen
representatives, and in the full posses
sion Of their own local State govern
ments.
This we. owe to the healing, vigor-
Gus and invigorating principles oil
Republican liberty created, planted
crystalized into Constitutional law by
our fathers a hundred years ago
They saved us when we could not
save ourselves. After armies of brave
soldiers had failed by the most bril-
liant courage and devotion to achieve
Southern independence, had ceased
to battle, and had melted away, those
lndestructiblo principles of Constitu
tlOnal law came to our rescue, and
restored us to our former rights as
equals of the Northern people in the
nation. This wonderful result could
not have occurred in any other coun
try, or under any other form of gov
eminent.
The entire people Of the South owe
to that Constitution and it's principle!
more than any other people. The,
should cling to the Union as the true
and only ark of safety.