The Wellington enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 1867-188?, 1882-08-02
The Southern Situation.

Among the other Southern States
where there are hopeful signs of the
breaking up of the old moss-back De-
mocracy, North Carolina appears to be
looming up somewhat conspicuously.
Numerous desertions are recorded from
the Bourbon ranks from time to time,
and many of the deserters are those
whose Democracy has heretofore been
consistent and pronounced. These per-
sons have doubtless at last become tired
of and disguised with the villainous
frauds and monstrous outrages by which
the party almost through its entire his
tory has been sustained, and they see
no hope of bettering this sad condition
of things except by severing the ties of
party allegiance. and asserting their po-
litical independence. OF those who are
taking part in this movement, ex-Con-
gressman Leach may be mentioned as
one who has heretofore stood high in
the party. In 1880 he was one of the
Hancock Electors; was ten years mem
Der of the North Carolina Legislature,
and was representative in Congress
when his State seeded from the Union.
He is man of fine education,
and is lawyer by profession.
He has written a letter giving
the reasons for his severance from his
party. which, when put in circulation,
will doubtless give voice to sentiments
against the old corrupt Democracy in
which thousands of other North Carroll
mans will fully sympathize. Ex-senator
CGngman, who in years past has been
a member of both branches of the Legis-
latrre of his native State, as well as of
both houses of the National Congress,
has declared for the Independents. He
has been identified with the politics of
the South for half century, and his
Democracy was of such n genuine type
that he took leading part in the re-
bellion as Colonel in the Confederate
army. This led to his expulsion from
the United States Senate in July, 1861.
The motives for such a man to aban-
don his party must be strong. and
among the reasons he gives for his ac-
ton in the premises is that he believes
that the party is under the control of
leaders who are hopelessly corrupt.
Though he has been long time in find
ing out fact which for years has been
plain as sunlight to the disinterested
observer, his conversion is doubtless
genuine, and it may. be safely predicted
that he will never again be found
acting with the party he SO well
knows is so thoroughly corrupt
that regeneration is impossible. That
these are not isolated cases is plain
ly demonstrated by the tone of the
public press, that, in general, sure in
dicator of public opinion. Several of
the heretofore strict Bourbon journals
are taking ground for the Independent
movement, the editor of one of them
having accepted nomination for Con-
gress as an Independent candidate. Two
years ago, the Hancock Electors re-
ceived plurality over the Republican
Electors of over eight thousand votes,
but the leaders of the anti-Bourbon
movement are sanguine enough to claim
that they can more than wipe out these
formidable figures. For a result in the
direction of the advancement of civil
and political order, and towards the
recognition of the true principles of rep
resentative government SO long trodden
under foot by the rampant Southern De-
mocracv, they will be entitled to and will
receive the sympathies of all the friends
of good government, throughout the
country. Their success will be the pre-
cursor of what must soon. take place
in South Carolina, where the most arbi-
trary, infamous and high-handed meas
ures ever enacted by a deliberative body
have been put in force by the Legisla-
ture to falsify and smother the domi-
nant political sentiment of the State,
and by forcible means to establish the
rule of the minority. This act of the
Legislature is such a palpable and indie
fensible outrage that the only answer
the Northern Democratic press has for
it is, that its exposition by the Repub-
licans is only a waving of the "bloody
shirt" .irevival of the issues of the
war" and other worn-out subterfuges
of the late Presidential election.
In the Southern States at large, the
leaven for a general deliverance from
the Bourbon rule which has held its de-
moralizing grip upon the people with
little intermission for many years is
working, and like the Scripture leaven,
give it time and it will-leaven the whole
lump. The days of Bourbonism are
narrowed down to Insignificant figures.
= Wisconsin State Journal.