Sacramento daily record-union., 1890-03-15
IAN ERA OF GOOD FEELING.

We have the word of the Atlanta GA J
Constitution that an era of better feeling
has dawned in the South. We are glad of
it, and trust that the statement of the
Constitution is not as deceptive as have been
some other prophecies in that section about
the rising sun OF brotherly love- The
Constitution says;
Il is a common thing now for Northern Re-
publican to visit the South and speak to an at
tentive audience, Just as Major Mckinley did at
our Piedmont Chautauqua, and this is reeipro-
Gated in the North by the courtesies extended
to Southern Democrats like the late Henry
Grady. The sections continue to be politically
divided but they are willing to give each other a
hearing. The most stalwart Northern Republi-
can can speak from every Southern platform
without fear of insult. and the orators of the
South draw enthusiastic crowds all over the
North.
When the editor of the Constitution had
written that far he must have been struck
by the truth that his statement was a
frank confession that the South had not
always been thus tolerant, but it had for
an age defed the right of free speech, put
liberty of expression under its heel and
refused political opponents the common
decency of a hearing. We say, the singu-
lar character of his statement as a confess
sion must have been painfully apparent to
him, for he soon after wrote, with a frank
ness that was intended TO take the edge
from the truth, that before the war Web
ster did not speak south of Virginia, and
that such men as Sumner and Phillips
never attempted to speak in the South.
And, it is added, that even Stephen A.
Douglas did not find his southern trip a
pleasant one in 1860, and that only the
presence of Alex H. Stephens on the stand
at his Atlanta meeting insured him a re-
spectful hearing and the preservation of
order.
All this is true, but it is not half the
truth. Northern orators did not speak in
the South before the war for the simple
reason that they could not do so except at
peril of their lives. The excuse for this
intolerance was that the slaves might hear
words that would incite them to rise in
insurrection. But that admission, when
impartial history canes to be written, viii
be set down as the most humiliating of
confessions of the wrongs of slavery and
of its demoralizing influence. While in
the South there was no such thing as free
speech or free press; in the North the
Southern orators were received and lis
tened to in defense of slavery and in de-
nunciation of abolitionists, and they had
no fear nor any cause for it.
1t is well to recall these facts, that the
present generation may see how far the
American people have moved forward
upon the line Of progress since the days of
the war, and that the youth of the land
may not be ignorant of the fact that the
time was when the free speech guaranteed
by the Federal Constitution was limited to
the narrow confines of the northern half
of the Union. The Georgia paper con-
cludes its article with these words, in
which we heartily concur:
1t goes without saying that our present inter
change of visits and views, our excursions and
banquets and speeches, tend to bring the people
together and unite them against the political
agitators who would separate them and revive
the old sectional hate. We are coming to the
time when there viii be no North and no South,
except in the geographical sense. Let the good
Work 90 on.