Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1884-01-03
A Christmas Gift to the Solid South.

An Confederate officer, residing in
Missouri, was heard to excIaim with
joy. after the Democratic victories last
November, that 1.-The Southern Confed-
eracy is again in the saddle" We can
well imagine that the unreconstructible
MissouriaH felt peculiarly happy on
Tuesday morning when he read the list
of Speaker Carlisle's committees. They
were real Christmas gift to the South.
They put the old slave States back into
their pre-eminence of ante-war days,
and give them an overwhelming pre-
ponderauce of influence in the National
House of Representatives and the COM
mittees which are not given outright to
the South are given to men conspicuous
for their sympathies with Southern
ideas of trade and politics. the States
which but few years ago devoted their
lives and their fortunes to the work of
destroying this Union, receive twenty
nine out of fifty-four committees, leav-
ing but twenty-five to the great North
with its teeming millions. The most
striking feature of the committees is
the prominence of free trade and Sec
tionalism. Morrison, of Illinois, pro-
nOunced free trade theorist, is chairman
of the Committee of Ways and Means.
After him comes Georgian, then
Kentuckian, and, dangling at the heels
of these Southerners, come men fIom
the North. The chairman of the Judic-
iary Committee is Tucker, of Virginia,
The interests of the South demanded
that the Judiciary should be under the
influence of lawyers from that section,
for Southern claims cannot be collected
unless radical changes are made in our
federal courts. The present modes of
trying offenders against the revenue
and election laws are inconvenient to
moonshiners and bulldozers, and in the
event of the election of Il Democratic
President next year it will be handy,
with the present committee, to eHtirely
South Carolina, the first State in trea-
son, and the first in illiteracy, furnishes
the country with chairman of the
Committee on Education. Missouri, the
home of the notorious James, has the
chairmanships of the Committee on
Banking and Currency and on Coinage,
Weights, and Measures. Mr.. Turner, of
Georgia, is chairman of the Committee
on Elections. 1t Was imperatively ne
cessary that the Democracy should go
into the South for a man to fill this posi-
tion. 1t is recognition of the South
ern political methods, and while it may
seem highly appropriate TO many Demo-
Gratis it will be received with profound
Indignation by the great masses of the
people throughout the North. 1t is no
less than an insult to the American
D ople and an outrage upon our free in
stitutions to place representative of
the Southern methods of conducting
elections at the head of this committee.
The bulldOzers, shotgunsers, and perpe-
traitors of tissue ballot frauds will now
feel that they can continue their villainy
in the utmost security, since one of the
very creatures of their outrageS has
been so honored All the contested
election cases in this House will come
before the COMMITTEES presided over by
Georgian and he will naturally apply to
their consideration the peculiar ideas on
this subject that are accepted in his own
State. The interests of our commerce,
manufactures, and agriculture, SO far as
they can be involved in the House COM
mittees, are all placed in the hands of
Southern members who represent but a
small fraction of the wealth of the Ma
ton.
The making up of the committees in
the interest of the South is the inevita
BILE result of the sectional policy of the
Democracy. Without the South its party
existence would soon terminate, and as
its very life depends upon the solidity of
the old slave States, it is forced to accept
sectionalism as its great fundamental
principle. Sectionalism is to the De-
mocracy of to-day what the Union was
to the Republican party twenty years
ago, and still is to-day. The solid South
is the "be-all and the end-all" OF Demo
cratic policy. 1t cannot, however, re-
tain the slave States solid and use them
at will, without recognizing them. Eve
rything therefore is given to them, or
rather they take everything, for the old
"Confederacy is again the saddle" They
are expected TO hold the South solid
next year, and, with the aid of few
Northern States, to elect Democratic
President. Should they succeed in this
the question would not merely be how
much the South should be recognized.
The question then would be whether
the North should be recognized at all,
and we are inclined to think that the
answer would be very emphatically in
the negative.-(Cleveland Leader.
Excited Thousands.