The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1882-04-06
Southern Bourbons.

A noston clergyman, who has been
travelling in the South attempts i'm re-
cent number of the atlantic Jfonfhiv to
explain who and what manner of men
the so called Bourbon Democrats' o
the South, are "as used in the North
though he might more properly have
said, "by the Republican press of the
North-""this word Bourbon designates
a class 1f white men composed chiefly ol
the leading citizens of the Southern
States. The Bourbons arc the principal
business inen, lawyers, physicians, teach.
ers, clergymeD, merchants and farmers OF
the South. They are everywhere tn;
leaders of society, in the best sense of the
word. They sustain the churches, and
give such efficiency to the moral activities
and discipline of the local communities
rs they lavc thus far attained Taken
broadly or generally, the class includes
the best people Of the South, or most of
them. They are Bourbons because in
politics they are Democrats and act in op-
position to the principles, policy or
methods of the Republican party, which
has administered the national govern.
ment since the time Of our civil war. In
the Southern States the term bourbon has
no distinct significance 1t is applied
indiscrminately by all classes of poiiti-
clans to any one who differs from them.
1t Is there convenient though empty
epithet or name of reproach. Every
mproyement-the representative or en-
| bodiment of the only ideas by which
society can exist or civilization be main.
tanned and he is OF course entitled to
s!igmatize his opponents ns Bourbons.
The word is sham or burlesque weapon
in the South, and is used there by every
body in political wIangling "ior all it is
worth" AS to the Southern men who
compose the class TO which this name is
usually applied in the North, am com
PEELED to say that, aside from political
matters, they are much like other people
or like the best people in our Northern
communities They do not appear to
love what is wrong for its own sake, nor
TO prefer falsehood, baseness, cruelty or
injustice to the virtues and good qualities
which are elsewhere revered in good men.
They are amiable, truthful, conscientious
kind, public.spirited and religious, resen.
bling very closely the foremost men in
our New England towns in all tho i'm.
por!ant elements Of personal character;
differing only, in being more communica-
tive aud having less reserve than IL usual
among New Englandcrs AS to their
political action, it seems to me to have
beer for some years largely inevitable /;
the necessary product and result of the
peculiar conditions of life and society in
the South since the civil war. 1t does
not appear 10 have been owing to sheer
depravity on their part, nor to any choice
or agency of theirs, that there was Cor
some years disturbed and unsettled
state of things in the Southern States.
Collisions between different classes fol.
lowed unayodably upon the elevation of
the emancipated slaves into political su-
periority over the disfranchised white citi-
zens of the country. There has never
been any such completeness Of organiza-
ton among the people Of the South since
the war as many persons believe to have
existed there. That part of the country
is distinguished by much greater feeble
ness of community and less organic life
than belongs to Northern society and
the Bourbons are not really responsible
Tor everything that has been done south
of Mason and Dixon's lire. The men
thus designated are, emiuently social,
hospitable, honest and upright men,
if we leave their politics out of view.
They have, in large measure, built up
and maintained such moral, social, indus
trial and religious organization and anx.
icty, as tie South now possesses, and much
OF what is best and most encouraging
in the present state of things in the prin-
cipal Southern States is due to them and
their efforts for practical reconstruction
in time of extreme difficulty and un-
certainty, when their resources were most
discouragingly slender, and when they
had no precedents to guide them except
Irb Sol, o1 h,,t ~
of mankind in the long contest between
civilization and barbarisr, in the past I
think they have made mistakes and done
wrong things since the war. l am not
certain that we or anybody else would
have done better than they
In conversation with these gentlemen
, | everywhere express my conviction that
illegal interference with negro suffrage
could not be continued without the most
serious injury to all Southern interests,
and that it would be better that Southern
men, Democrats, should make the ballot
entirely free to all vino are legally entitled
to its possession, and then endure what
ever ills might result. They always re-
piled that disturbance, violence and fraud
were each year diminishing, aud that ne.
gro political supremacy would be utterly
ruinous for the State and for society, and
insisted that if the Republican party of
the South possessed the character and
employed the methods of the same party
in the North they would gladly cooperate
with it, that they were ready to discard
and abandon their political organization
whenever any other party would take up
the real problems of the South and se-
riously address itself TO their solution.
In studying the Bourbons l have been
forced to conclude that nothing has been
attained anywhere much better than the
domestic life of this class of the Southern
people in ite intelligence, refinement.
beauty and general elevation and whole.
someness.
The plain English vi this Boston cler-
gyman's dissertation upon the "Bour-
bons" is that the business, intelligence,
refinement, culture, respectability and
wealth of the South is in the Democatic
party. The Republican papers of the
North are in the habit of calling the
Southern Democrats "Bourbons," a.. ep-
tibet which, in the light of this clergy
mans investigation, must be hereafter
regarded rs highly complimentary. The
Republican party of the North seeks to
disrupt and overthrow the Democratic
party in the several Southern States, and
place barbarous horde of half civilized
negroes in control of the wealth, proper
ty and business of the South. The fed
eral administration is bending all its pat
ronage and energies to this end, as If IL
were good thing to place virtue, intelli-
| pence aud Droanaritv under tho haaIs ~