Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1882-03-23
Misfellauepns &eaaiua.
SOUTHERN BOURBONS.

SOUTHERN BOURBONs.
A Boston clergyman, who has been travel
ing in the South, attempts in a recent number
of the Atlantic Monthly to explain who and
what manner of men the so-called Bourbon
Democrats" of 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 class of
white men composed chiefly of the leading cit
liens of the Southern States. The BOurbons
are the principal business men, lawyers, ply
scians, teachers, clergymen, merchants and
farmers of the South. They are everywhere
the leaders of society, in the best sense of the
word. They sustain the churches, and give
such efficiency to the moral activities and dis
cipline of the local communities as they have
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 government since the time Of our
civil war. In the Southern States the term
Bourbon has no distinct significance. 1t is
applied indiscriminately by all classes Of poll
ticians to any one who differs from them. 1t
is there convenient though empty epithet or
name of reproach. Every improvement-the
representative or embodiment of the only
| ideas by which society can exist or civilization
be maintained and he is of course entitled to
stigmatize his opponents as B0urbOns. The
word is a sham or burlesque weapon in the
South, and is used there by everybody in po-
litical wrangling "for all it is WORTH" AS to
the Southern men who compose the class to
which this name is usually applied in the
North, I am compelled to say that, aside from
| >o1tf TOOL ,,of} fhnyyn 1nh l<a
people, or like the best people in our Northern
communities. They do not appear to love
what it wrong for it's own sake, nor to prefer
falsehood, baseness, cruelty or injustice to
to the virtues and good qualities which are
elsewhere revered in good men. They are
amable, truthful, conscientious, kind, public
spirited and religious, resembling very closely
| the foremost men in our New England towns
in all the important elements of personal char
| acter; differing only, in general in being more
communicative and having less reserve than
is usual among New Englanders. AS to their
political action, it seems to me to have been
for some years largely inevitable; the neces-
sary product and result of the peculiar con-
| ditions of life and society in the South since
| the civil war. It does not appear to have been
owing to sheer depravity 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 unavoldahly
upon the elevation of the emancipated slaves
into political supiriority over the disfranchised
white citizens of the country. There has
never been any such completeness Of OrganlZa-
| ton among the people of the South since the
war as many persons believe to have existed
there. That part of the country is distinguish
| ed by much greater feebleness Of community
| and 1occ than hplOnpS Northern
| society and the BourbonS are not really re-
sponsble for everything that has been done
south of Mason and Dixon's line. The men
| thus designated are, as a class, emlnently
social, hospitable, honest and upright men, If
| we leave their politics out of view. They
| have, in a large measure, built up and main
| tanned such moral, social, industrial and re-
| lgious organization and anxiety, 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 their efforts for practical recon-
| struction in time of extreme difficulty and
| uncertainty, when their resoursces were most
discourageingly slender, and when they had
were furnished by the experience of mankind
| in the long contest between civilization and
| barbarism in the past. I think they have
| made mistakes and done wrong things since
| the war. I am not certain that we o.: any
| body else would have done better than they.
In conversation with these gentlemen ev-
erywhere 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 De
better that Southern men, Democrats, should
make the ballot entirely free to all who are le-
gally entitled to it's possession, and then en-
| dure whatever ills might result. They always
replied that disturbance, violence and fraud
were each year diminishing, and that negro po-
litical 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 CO.
| operate with it, that they were ready to dis
| card and abandon their present political Or
ganzation whenever any other party would
take up the real problems Of the South and Sc
riously address itself to their solution. LII
studying the BOurbOns have been forced to
conclude that nothing has been attained any
where much better than the domestic life OF
this class of the Southern people in its lntelll-
gence, refinement, beauty and general eleVa-
tion and wholesomeness.
The plain English of this Boston clergyman's
dissertation upon the 'Bourbons" is that the
business, intelligence, refinement, culture re-
| Spectabifity and wealth of the South is III the
Democratic party. The Republican papers OF
the North are in the habit of calling the South
ern Democrats Bourbons," an epithet which,
in the light of this clergyman's investigation,
must be hereafter regarded as highly compll-
mentary. The Republican party of the North
seeks to disrupt and overthrow the Democrat
| c party in the several Southern States, and
place IA barbarous horde of half-civillzed ne
groes in control of the wealth, property and
business of the South. The federal admins
tration is bending all its patronage and ener-
gies to this end, as if it were a good thing to
place virtue, intelligence and prosperity under
| the heels of vice, gross ignorance and business
ruin, as personified by the thick-skulled, black
Republican party of the South. All this is at
tempted in order that the offices Of the federal
government may be kept in the control OF the
gentry who at present administer them. 10
accomplish this they are not only willing but
anxious to destroy the prosperity and welfare
of third part Of the federal union. This
may be smart politics, but it is not only unpa-
triotic but wicked.-DoyleSto,on, Po., Demo-
crdt.
LOOK AT YOUR TIIUMBs.-If anybody Will
look carefully at the end of his thumb, he will
find that the surface is ridged with little
thread-like ranges Of hills, wound round ana
round in tiny sprals. If he will take mag
nifying glass and examine them closely, lie will
find that there is a good deal Of individuality
in the way in which these are arranged NO
two thumbs in all the world are exactly alike.
The miniature mountain ranges are as fixed
and decided as the Alps or the Sierras, the ge-
ography of the thumb as unmistakable. NOW
the Chinese have made use of this fact for es-
tablishing rogue'S gallery. Whenever
| Mi mol 10 cd byt ~