The western sentinel. [volume] (Winston-Salem, N.C.) 1887-1926, 1890-10-09
WATTERSON AT BOSTON,
EXTRACTS FROM HIS SPEECH BE-
FORE THE REFORM CLUB.
He Makes Manly Defence of the South
ern People for the Methods Used to Pre-
vent Negro Domination.


Hon. Henry Waite rsom made
great speech before the Reform Club,
of Boston, last week. We make a
few extracts from his manly speech as
follows:
Yet, the mailed hand of the Repub-
liean leader still clasps the sword of
conquest, and the savage face of eter-
nal vengeance is turned upon us,with
out the least abatement of distinction.
1t is enough that white man living
in the South is not Republican to
obtain for him from thos. who claim
monopoly of patriotism, enlightenment
and virtue, the description Of an enc
my and a traitor.
L have not come here to make apol-
ogies. 1 stani in this great and free
city Of Boston, this shrine of Ameri
can manhood and liberty, an Ameri-
can citizen, with all his faculties about
him and ali his rights intact, to call
halt upon fifty years of sectional crimi
ration and recrimination; born of
hideous misconceptlon, and alike dis.
creditable to the South and to the
North; and to proclaim and maintain
that there is not a particle of difference
between the North and South, between
the Northern people and the Southern
people, but that, body and soul, they
are exactly alike; that blood which
ebbs and flows here in New England,
warming to generous deeds and ready
to pour itself freely upon the affairs of
truth, and swelling with noble rage
and scorn against all that is cruel and
mean and base, is the same blood
which courses through the veins of
Mississippi, Arkansas and Texas.
| am here to put my foot upon the
falsehocd that the people of the South
are doing anything, or have done any
thing that you yourselves would not
have done had your places been ex-
changed. I am here to remind you
that the sin of slavery was, 10 the be-
ginning, divided sin, but that the
cost and the curse of it have fallen
solely upon us and we have expiated
it.
l know both sections of the Union
well. 1 am as familiar with the peo-
pie of the North as with the people of
the South; with their habits Of life,
their modes of thinking, their vast re-
sour ces, their quick intelligence, their
steadiness and their sturdiness; and 1
speak as man who, knowing his
whole country, loves it, demanding of
the stronger section, not aims, but JUS
tice, and justice alike for ourselves and
for yourselves.
I beseech you to hear me in the
name of that rich heritage of constitu-
tional government which was won by
your fathers and our fathers, and
which cannot be maintained except
through our joint efforts. entreat
you to believe that if you permit one
stone of that free fabric to be snatched
from its foundation and hurled at us,
it will be only a question of time when
the edifice, thus despised, vii. topple
and come down upon US all, burying
the North equally with the South be-
meath its ruins.
beg your indulgence if these
things seem to me more real than they
are to you. l know that it is the
fashion to discredit all reasoning by
analysis, all recurrence to its historic
advisement, all earnestuess of belief,
and all prediction which does not take
its cue from the stock market, where,
Us you know, the goose swings high in
the air, and everybody is bound to
win.
am something of an optimist my
self; but 1 am unaware of the posses.
sion of any charm which is to exempt
us from the operation of human laws,
and have, in my time, had personal
ly to deal with too many affairs of
pith and moment to be ignorant of the
common inirmity of refusing to see
until it is tpo late to mend.