Saint Mary's beacon. [volume] (Leonard Town, Md.) 1867-1983, 1884-11-27
AN UNREAsosApLE CoMpIA1nr


AN UNREASONABLE COMPLAINT
In the late bitter sectional speech OF
Mr.. Blaine at Augusta, among other
specifications he makes against the
South is the charge that she sends
none but Rebel Brigadiers, or at least
rebel officers, to represent her in Con.
gress. This is furnished to show the
disloyalty of that section and the
smouldering aaimus that still impels
its people. When all the circumstan.
ces are considered, this complaint will
strike, we think, q candid mind az
unjust and unreasonable. The stu
alton at Inc South during the late
war was very different from what it
was at the North. The superior re-
sources or opportunities Of the latter
enabled her to recruit her armies by
foreign enlistments, which she avaiIcd
herself of to an extent to greatly re.
leave her native population. It was
thus never difficult at the North for
lnoneyed man to supply a substi-
tute when he was disin clined to 90 to
the front, and it is fact that Mr..
Blaine hi9assS,s 2goidsd practical war
Ion sss . - "a ilEs Pises-
1t was not tu,ss~ith the SoSNa. After
shevolunteer experiment had exhaust
cd itself, it became necessary to invoke
consumption, and the most thorough,
rigid and exhaustive measure of tins
kind that the annals of war give any
example Of was adopted. Gut off by
the blockade from all foreign enlist
ments, it was either CONSUMPTION or
surrender, and CONSUMPTION was de.
termined on which embraced every
male white in the country from Is to
45 who was in decent health and not
in the civil employments Of the States
or the Confederacy, and even these
were forced to shoulder their musket
In all grave emergencies. Thus, sub
stantially, the whole male white popu-
lation OF the country become involved
10 the war, and there was really more
truth than poetry in the brag of the
North that it had forced the South to
tax the cradle and the grave" to re-
cruitits forces, it being no unusual sight
in the trenches around Richmond
during the last year of the war to see
grandfather over rs and grandson
under IA standing shoulder to shout
der with their rifles leveled at the
common invader. The war over with,
reconstruction escaped and the South
Tree to provide herself with Represen-
tatives in Congress, she had then
either to elect soldier or nobody.
Carpet Baggers there were, indeed, in
the South at this time, also a few
native skulkers and deserters, but
these were mostly without character
and were not to be thought of, be-
cause they would have represented
neither the integrity and intelligence
nor the property ofthe country. The
South then was compelled to engage
the services of its own soldiers or low
er the high standard of it's represen-
tation in Congress. Not more natu-
rally also did its favOrs gravitats to-
ward the soldier class than towards
that class Of soldiers which had dis
tinguished itself by valOr and capaci-
ty in war. Hence the Brigadiers of
whose presence in Congress Mr.. Blaine
SO bitterly complains in his Augusta
speech. We have shown, we hope,
that the selection by the South of the
soldier class for Congressional honOrs
was practically unavoidable and that
1T was natural and to be expected
that it should invest with its topmost
honons the particular class of soldiers
who had received the highest distinc-
tion in war and were best known for
culture and fol aptitude in civil en-
Payments, and with this, We dismiss
the spiteful and unreasonable com.
plant of the defeated republican can.
didate for the presidency, Mr.. Blaine.