The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-09-15
AS 10 IORECONSTRUCTION
WORSE THAN THE DESTRUCTION
 WROUGHT BY THE WAR.
Thomas Nelson. Page Tells of the Saturnalias of the Carpet Bag gers From a Southern
 Point of View.
Norfolk1.ansmark

Norfolk Landmark.
 | Dr. Thomas Nelson Pages contribution to the September number of The Atlantic Monthly shares with that of ex-aovernor Chamberlain of South Carolina, the dis. junction of being the most notable ot the Atlantic,s fine series on "Fhe Reeof- struction Period" Governor Chamberlain's paper when it appeared Chamberlain was hinaseH one Of the reconstruction Governors of
 Gen. Wade Hampton made the niasterly campaign which restored the State to the control of It's real people. GoverHor Chamberlain ta New Englander, who had
 moved to South Carolina after the war,
 and who has since moved back to his old
 home) was quite partisan in those days.
 He fought hard on the wrong side. In
 Srssst in The he Ms tbs hs made
 ting that he had been wrong. that the treatment of the South during the recon>
 struction period was shameful, and that
 was as great an Injury to the South as the war Itself had been.
 .Dr Page approaches the subject from
 the point of viey of the native southern-
 CT. He. writes in temperate vein: in- decd, his reference to the carpet-baggers,
 while untnistHkable In its import, is no
 more. scathing than was Governor Cham beriains. After remarking that the peo- pie. outside of the South before the war
 had an utterly mistaken conception of
 the character of the Southern planter and
 slave owner. imagining him a lazy fell
 ilres, Dr. Page observes that the war had
 not been in progress many days before
 the North and the rest of the world was entirely relieved of this wrong impress ot the southern people was demonstrated
 more strikingly In the wretched days af-
 ter the war than during the war itself.
 We quote:
 What. the South really was she gave
 no small rroof of during the war; she gave even stronger. proof after the war.
 Without ships; without money: without machinery that could produce 4 knife, a blanket, or a tin cup; without an ally;
 without even the sympathy of a single nation; without knowledge of the outside mined % she saa to tSe final gasp the vast fcrces thrown against her-enduring all things. hoping all things until she was, not only over ehrown,4 but actually destroyed. When sherman marched across the South to the sea he found 1t to be an empty she'll At that same time the campaign from I9e I5s ooh oRhapldan to Appomattox cost Grant man that Lee. had in his army.
 But as notable as were the intHepidity ot her soldiery in the field and the endur- not equal to the resolution and courage that her people displayed in the great and struggle afterwards. The ona "dS Il IlBht or UlSclDHAe0 armies, With m open sky and q fair field, the endurance of q. people animated by hope; the other was a. long and desperate struggle, with shacklsn hands. against q foe that in the darkness. unknown to the rest of the world. or with sort of blind approval on Its part. fastenId on its vitais and slowly sapped its life blood"
 The distinguished writer is sure that if Mr. Lincoln had lived the country would ! have escaped most of the blunders and | solhes and crirles of the reconstruction, l Whatever may be said of Lincoln, he had | ,ommop sense and applied 1t to the busi- less of ,government, His death let loose anatics and ,rnprircipled schemers, against whom the forces of conserva- | ism, deprived of their leader were un- lble. to make any headway. Returning to | he impressive language of MrI Page:
 The white race were disfranchised and | were not allowed the franchise again un- | il they had assented to giving the black | ace absolute equality in all matters of | ivil right. This the leaders of the other [