The Colfax chronicle. [volume] (Colfax, Grant Parish, La.) 1877-1981, 1882-03-11
Southern .sBsurbons.

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A Boston clergyman, who has been
travelling in the South, attempts in re-
cent 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 deslg,.
mates a class of white men composed
chiefly Of the leading citizens OF the
Southern States. The Bourbons are the
principal business men, lawyers ply.
sicians, teachers, clergymen, merchants
and farmers of the Sohth. 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 discipline
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 oppose
ton to the principles. policy or meth
DDS 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
Unfortunately 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 politician insists that his party
is the party of progress, OF improve
ment-the representatives. and embod-
iment of the only ideas by which
society can exist or civilization be
maintained; and he is of course
entitled to stigmatize. his opponents as
Bourbons Tho word is . sham or bur-
lesque weapon in the South, and is used
there by everybody in political ,wrang-
ling for all it is worth : As to the
Southern men who compose the class to
which this name is.usuallys applied in
the North, am compelled 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 by good men.
They are amiable, truthful, conscien-
tious. kind, public-spirited and religious,
resembling very closely the foremost
men in our New England towns in all
the important elements of personal
character; 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 necessary
product and result of the peculiar con-
ditions of life and society in the South
since the civil war. 1t 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 unavoidably upon the eleva-
ton of the emsncipated slaves into
political superiority over the dis
franchised white citizens of the
country. There has never been any
such completeness of organization
among the people of the South since the
war as many persons believe tohaveex-
listed 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 respon-
sible for everything that has been done
South of Mason and Dixon's line /
shall have more to, say hereafter of
Southern policies. Here / wish only to
place the so-called Bourbon type as
plainly as possible before my readers
The men thus designated are, as aclass.
eminently social, hospitable, honest and
upright men, if we leave their politics
out Of view. They have, in large meas
ure, built up and maintained such moral,
social, industrial and religious organiza-
ton and activity as the South now pos
sesses, 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
practical reconstruction in q time of ex-
treme difficulty and uncertainty, when
their resources were most discouraging-
ly slender, and when they had no prece-
dents to guide them except such as were
furnished by the experience of mankind
in the long contest between civilization
and barbarism in the past. / think they
have made mistakes and have done
wrong things since the war.
"ln conversation with these gentle
men l everywhere expressed my con-
viction 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 who are legally entitled to its poses
sion, and then endure Whatever ills
might result. They always replied that
disturbance, violence and fraud were
each year diminishing, and that negro
political supremacy would be utterly
rrlinous for the State and for society.
and insisted that if the Republican
party of the South possessed the char
acter and employed the methods of the
same party in the North they would
gladly cooperate with it; that they
y.ooAu ~ H;ccn~1 ed