The Portland daily press., 1881-02-01
Good for the Soul?

One of the faults from which that able
journal, the Charleston News, is free is hy-
pocrisy. That's homage itdoes not render
to virtue. Otherwise good, where voting is
concerned it is frankly wicked. 1t does not
speak right out in meetin'-for it never goes
to meeting; but it does make much use of
its own sounding board, and has given the
South great deal of good advice. 1t says
what it means, and for that reason its utter
ances regardiog the exercise of the right of
suffrage are all the more lamentable. They
are sincere.
In commenting on the fact that three or
four hundred persons have been arrested in
South Carolina for illegal voting and are to
be tried at the April session of the United
States Circuit Court in Charleston, the
News says: sit is immaterial whether the
accused are innocent or guilty. For us it is
slifs11,-.;... - lnow that the arrests are made
because the Republicans were swept out of
sight and hearing in South Carolina last
November. The white people, with their
colored allies, were determined that the VIC
tories of 1876 and 1878 should be repeated
and made complete. This was the cry
everywhere, and what was called for was
done. Silence gave consent. 1t would be
unutterably base to deny to those who are
in danger, in consequence of public demands
and personal expectations, our encourage
ment, our support and any sort of succor
that is needed. Turning over new leaf
for the future does not require of any one
that he desert and betray those who served
the State in the past. Qui .facit per alum
tacit per sc. The cause of the accused
Democrats must be the cause of the white
people OF South Carolina, whatever come of
it. This is due to them and ourselves
This means that the News upholds the
tissue vote and other wicked practices upon
the ballot box, advises the strenuous de-
fence of ballot-box suffers who ought to be
in the penitentiary, and seeks to justify the
methods by which the majority of the voters
OF South Carolina have been practically dis
franchised, and their will disregarded The
Charleston paper does not deny the guilt of
the offenders, but mentions ii as thing to
be proud of, AID commends the guilty ones
for the service they have rendered the State
instead of recommending them to the courts,
as tit subjects for State service. The COM
ments it passes upon the comiog trials are
frank and manly statement of Southern
political methods. While those methods OBJ
tain Northern people, habituated to free
political discussion, equality of suffrage and
honesty in the counting of votes, ought not
certainly to be blamed for protesting, or
called sectional agitators because they ex-
press their condemnation of wrongs and out
RACES that must disgrace any nation which
processes to be governed by the free suffrage
of its citizens and boasts of the political
equality which its government bestows upon
all its voters.
Confession is said to be good for the soul
but only when accompanied by sincere re-
pentance and determination to do right
thereafter. The only Indication we can f d
{of that sort of confession, is in the declara-
tion of the News that Turning over a new
leaf for thefuture does not require of any one
that he desert and betray those who served
the State III the past" Tlere is not much
expressed pentence in this declaration to be
sure; buS an acknowledgment of the neces-
sity OF turning new leaf, is virtually con-
fession of errorin thepast. The confession is
scanty foundation for hope, but it can be
literally and loosely and charitably con-
strued as meaning tina. the South Carolina
Democrats are willing to he forcivan and
are ready to promise they won't do so any
Ihore-unless it is necessary to carry an cleo
ton,