The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-04-19

by their former slaves. Then came polit- ical equality, a constitution forced on Alabama despite the fact that General Meade, commander of the military dis trict, reported that it was defeated How few of the young men know that hun dreds of affidavits were made that the negroes of south Lowndes could not cross the icy waters of historic Big Swamp in order to vote at the five days election, and congress, in the mad passion of the hour declared the new constitution the law. The instigators of those affidavits mostly lived and died miserably, but they held high carnival for time. Between the vile men who throve on negro cred u1ity and good, but mistaken men, who made ill-timed and unwise attempts to force social equality on the south there was caused much friction In places and at times between the races, which could have been avoided If matters had been allowed to take their natural course.
 I think the southern people were dis posed to overlook the robbery and van dalism committed by northern soldiers, knowing that there were such men as Mcclellan, Rosencrans, Meade, Buell. and Grant, who neither practiced nor protected such conduct, but they have not forgotten nor forgiven the efforts to pass force bills and enforce social equality with the emaneipated race by the worshipers of John Brown.
 Twenty years ago I took the Independ- ent, which prides itself on it's breadth of view and cultured philosophy. For an unmanly fling at Jeff Davis I stopped the paper, though the editor, in a note, said he regretted the matter. Last year I subscribed for the paper again, and in the second number was brutal thrust at my people because we did not sit in the street cars and in church with the negroes.
 Perhaps we should not be incensed at these little things, but, as Senator Vance once said in reply to taunt from ne- gro lover in the senate, MT President, the, gentleman says we ought not to notice such small things, but I have been more troubled in my life by fleas than by elephants"
 Perhaps these things are not strictly in line with recollections of camp life, but they form part of the history of the Confederate soldier, whose struggles for the supremacy of his race, will shine re- splendent In history, when the recollec- ton of his valor on bloody fields will be forgotten and the monuments to his foes shall have crumbled into dust. England sought to dishonor the decaying bones of Cromwell, her greatest son. but time, which sets all things even, has seen a monument erected to his memory. The feuds and wars which originated in the British Isles before the days of Julius Caesar, were happily concluded when a Scottish king inherited and sat on the throne of England, but the traditions of barbarous deeds, such as the massacre of Glencoe, yet live In the hearts of the people on the border land, and the fame of Flora Macdonald's devotion to Charles the Pretender, shines with a purer light than that of the bloody Duke of Cumberland The name of the Duke of Ava is still used as bogy to frighten Dutch children, and as the synonym of monster, but the herolsm of the people who cut their dykes and caused the ocean to overwhelm their land before they would surrender their religion and their liberty, is yet the admiration of the world.
 So, too the grey haired Confederate confidently believes that Father Time, the great leveler. and Truth, though she moves with leaden feet. will proclaim the infamy of the men who would degrade themselves and their race by miscegena- ton and throw halo of glorifed light on the memory of men who proudly up- held their race through years of misrule, oppression, hate and vlllification