The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1899-01-04
A REMARKABLE DECLARATION,
Care Of Confederate Living wouls te
Constitutional.
From the Ne,v .TorL- Press.

South is that arising from the question
of Confederate pensions. There never
has been since Lees surrender the
! slightest doubt of Southern "loyalty."
SO far as Il desire to remain within the
Union is concerned. A war with
France on the Mexican question would
probably have enrolled as many South
ern as Northern volunteers. On the
Secession issue and the Emancipation
issue, which it deemed the sole issues
of the war of the rebellion, the South
accepted the result in the most manfi,l
fashion ever followed, so far rs We
know. by an inslrgent people. Since
1861, when Judge Kclly's course
through Alabama was only occasional
ly vexcll by bricllbats. there have been
no extraordinary obstacles laid in the
way Of Republican orators in the more
pOpulous portions of the South. In
fact, from the year 1868 to 1915, when
the Bourbons, being incensed at the
number of new school houses which
were being built and railroads laid ont
raised howlagainst "carpct-baggers.'
and sscalawags,'' and shot the section
back into state of mint-juleped calm,
the South was a fairly Republican re-
gion. Atleast, the parties battled fair
ly for it. Outside of piratical Louisi-
ana, whoever had the most votes won.
Anybody with political memory can
recall the doubt over the result Of the
North Carolina State election of Au--
gust of Greeley's year. 1t was not, in
fact, until "'Tilden's bar'l" was opened
for the bulldozers that any question of
the loyalty of the South arose. So we
cannot see on this head Of reunion"
much difference between. Mr.. McKin-
ley's position and reception and those
of the first Northern Republican and
orator who went below Mason and
Dixon's line to inform the world that
God only knew whether Abraham Lin
coin OF Jefferson Davis "was right
Mr.. McKinley's attitude may be traced
directly, in brief, to that of a member
of President Hayes Cabinet. There is
absolutely nothing new about the re-
union idea. Bagleys are not born of a
disIoyal generation. More eloquent
than all the ""bloody chasm' rhetoric
that political orators may invent was
the laugh that went up at San Juan
when General Wheeler, through force
of habit, told his United States cavalry
regulars to go in and lick the Odd
Yankees" The old terms of bitterness
had become merely historic, and the
General would have aroused no more
political feeling had he called upon
Jacobite clansmen to lay on the clay
mare.
But the policy which the South,
Chairman Cannon, the Baltimore Sun
and others have taken to be foreshad-
owed in the Presidents speech as to
t ie care of the Confederate dead is
nav, and, whatever other objections
may be made, it is nonsense to talk OF
it as unconstitutional. If Mr.. McKin-
ley intends to recommit TO Congress
the relief of the Southern States from
the Confederate pensions, which now
sorely Cypress many of them, no one
can object on grounds found in the or
ganic law. Undoubtedly, if old Thad-
deus Stevens or even young James G.
Blaine had ever dreamed of proposal
to pay what they coarsely called
"rebep pensions out of United States
revenues prohibition of such expen-
diture would have been inserted in the
XIV Amendment. But, as they did
not and could not have conceived snch
notion, the prohibition was omitted.
This was natural. The pensions of
those who sought to preserve, not to
destroy, the Union had not then alb
sorbed an appreciable amount of the
national revenue and did not until
Congress, with what it considered
amazing cleverness, found way TO
get rid of Nn unmanageable surplus
and make votes simultaneously. So
the XIV Amendment merely forbics
the assumption by the United States OF
"any debt or obligation incurred in aid
of insurrection or rebellion against the
United States, or any claim for the loss
or emancipation of any slave" A ren-
sion is not "debt or obligation" but
entirely a gratuity. The care OF the
Confederate living rests upon precisely
the same basis as the care of the Con-
fedelnte dead recommended by the
President. Moreover, the Court which
would'inquire, as Courts for guidance
must, into the circumstances under
which the amendment was adopted,
would find that the 39th Congress, in
proposing this article to the several
States on June 18, 1866, had in mind
two things-avoldance of the payment
of the huge Confederate debt, largely
held in England, and remuneration
for the emancipated slaves. a demand
for which was expected in the event of
the Democratic party's return to pow
er. 1t may also be noted that, if PEN
sions were "debt or obligation" every
Southern State now paying them to
Confederate veterans would be viola
ting the Constitution. For, severally