Staunton vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1860-1896, 1882-02-24
The Southern "Bourbons.

AS DESCRIBED BY NORTHERN VISITOR
! The following is an extract from an al
ticle in the Atlantic Monthly" write
| by an independent and thoughtful gentle
: man, whose letters to the New York ''Tr
! bune',' last year attracted so much atten
! ton:
las used in the North, this word 'Boul
| bon designates a class Of white men. com
/ posed chiefly of the leading citizens OF tn
{ Southern States. The Bourbons are th
! principal business men. lawyers, physi
Clans, teachers, clergymen, merchants ant
farmers of the South. They are every
! where the leaders Of society, in the bes
/ sense Of the word. They sustain tn
/ churches, and give such efficiency to Jh
moral activities and discipline of the loca
communities as they have thus far at
tained. Taken broadly or generally, tn
I class includes the best people of the South
| or most of them. They are Bourbons be
cause III politics they are Democrats, ant
act in opposition to the principles, polio.
or methods Of the Republican party, which
has administered the National Govern
ment since the time of our civil war. II
the Southern states the term Bourbon ha!
DO distinct significance. 1t is applied in
discrim inately by all classes Of politician!
to anybody who differs with them. 1t is
there convenient though empty eplthet
or name Of reproach. Every politician in
sists that his party is the party of progress
of improvement-the representative and
embodiment of the only ideas by which
society can exist or civilization be main
tanned; and he is of course entitled to stig
Matte his opponents as Bourbons. The
word is sham or burlesque weapon in
the South, and is used there by everybody
in political wrangling, for all it is worth.
AS to the Southern men who compose the
class to which this name is usually ap
piled in the North, am compelled to say
that, aside from political matters, they
communities. They do not appear to love
what is wrong for it's own sake, nor to
prefer falsehood, baseness, cruelty, or in
justice to the yirtu6us and good qualities
which are elsewhere revered by good men.
They are amiable, truthful, conscientious,
kind, public-spirited, and religious, re-
sembling very closely the foremost men in
our New England towns in all the impor-
tant elements of personal character, diff
fering only, in general, in being more COM
mn hoy 1Aoo fbov 10
usual among New Englanders- AS to
their political action, it seems to me to
have been for some years largely insvita-
BILE. the necessary product and result Of
the peculiar conditions of life and society
in the South since the civil war. 1t does
not appear to have been owing to- sheer de-
pravity on their part, nor to any choice or
agency of theirs, that there was for some
years disturbed and unsettled state of
things IN the southern States. Collisions
between different classes followed una
voidably upon the elevation of the emanci
pated slaves into political superiority over
the disfranchised white citizens of the
country.
There has never been any such complete
ness of organization among the South
since the war as many persons believe to
have existed there; that part of our coun-
try is distinguished by much greater fee
bleness of community and less organic
life than belongs to northern society, and
the Bourbons are not really responsible
for everything that has been done south of
Mason and Dixon's line. I shall have
more to say hereafter of southern politics.
Here 1 wish only to place the so-called
Bourbon type as plainly as possible before
our readers. The men thus designated,
are, as class, eminently social, hospita-
BILE, honest, and upright men, if we leave
their politics out of view. They have, in
large measure, built up and maintained
such moral, social, industrial, and religious
organization and activity as the South
now possesses, and much of what is best
and most encouraging in the present state
of things in the principal Southern States
is due to them and to their efforts for prac-.
tical reconstruction in time of extreme
difficulty and uncertainty, when their re-
sources were most discouragingly slender,
and when they had no presidents to guide
them, except such as were furnished by
the experience of mankind in the long
contest between civilization and barbara
anism in the past. Think they have made
mistakes and have done wrong things since
the war. I am not certain that we, or
else, would have done better than
they.
Sin conversation with these L every-
where expressed my conviction chat lille
gal interference with negro suffrage could
not be continued without the most serious
injury to all southern interests, and it
would be better that southern men-Dem-
ocrats should make the ballot entirely free
to all who are legally entitled to its possess
sion, and then endure whatever ill might
result. They always replied that disturb
anee, violence and fraud were each year
and that negro political SUI
premacy would be utterly ruinous for the
State and for society, and insisted that, if
the Republican party in the South possess
ed the character and employed the meth
DDS of the same party in the North, they
would gladly cooperate with it; that they
were ready to discard and abandon their
present political organization whenever
any other party would take up the real
problems of the South and seriously ad-
dress itself to their solution.
''In studying the Bourbons 1 have been
forced to conclude that nothing has yet
been attained anywhere much better than
the domestic life of this class of southern
people, in its intelligence. refinement,
beauty and general elevation and whole
someness."
A sKEPTIC at social party engrossed |
general attention by an effort to prove |
that human beings have no souls. Seeing |
tha compapy staring at him in wonder and |