Year: 1879




nal.


Real Southern Sentiment.


jefferson Davis, late President of the
late southern Confederacy, and Okolona


States are rendering great service to
the country by telling the naked truth.
The man and the newspaper represent
the Rebel people, represent thoir pas
sions, their hates and their aspirations.
JEFF Davis declares that there is not in
the entire South one woman who is
loyal to the Nation. And he is cheered
to the echo by the Mississippi Demo.
cratic Press Convention. He declares
that the Lost Cause" is not lost, that
it is "not dead but sleepeth," and
every audience he addresses responds
with a hearty amen. The OkolOna
(Miss.) States is more frank and more
defiant than Davis, and its circulation
increases; it prospers. The States news
paper declares that the States of the
Nation are sovereign; that the Nation
is their creature; that if Mississippi
should lift her sword to smite the Ma
ton it would be the first duty of her
citizens to fly to arms; that the people
of the South "have no respect, no love,
no reverence whatever for the Nation;"
that they defy Federal laws; that they
have accomplished the practical dis
franchisement of the negro, notwith-
standing the Constitution of the Nation
conferrlng the right of suffrage upon
him; that the States are the masters of
the Nation; and that if Nationalists
''cut any bloody capers in defiance of
the established order of things" the
dogma of State-supremacy "will be
forced down their Shiny throats at the
point of the bayonet." This is the
sentiment of the Okolona STATES; there
is abundant evidence that it is also the
sentiment of large majority of the
Southern white people. Many of
their representatives in Congress pro-
fess loyalty to the Nation, but they
deny that there is such a thing as a
National election, and vote for every
measure tending to restrict and cripple
the National authority. Messrs.
Lamar, Hill and Bayard talk smoothly
of peace, harmony, and loyalty to the
reconstructed Union, but they vote
with Blackburn and the rest of the hot
heads to erase from the statute-books
allmeasures which conserve the suprem-
acy of the Nation. At the safe dis
tance of Washington they denounce
the editors of the Okolono States as
ranters, but they vote precisely as the
ranters rant. And when they return
to their constituencies they "sing
small'' or sing in tune with the music
provided by the States. In word, the
States understands Southern sentiment,
and faithfully reflects it. Mr.. Stephens,
of Georgia, makes spasmodic efforts at
conservatism; but his constituents soon
make themselves heard and he quickly
falls to the level of revolutionist. At
the election of 1873, in Charleston, S.
c., a conservative Democrat offered
himself as candidate for the Legisla-
ture on the platform of peace, har-
mony, and the Union. His fellow
Democrats not only drove him away
from the polls, but stuffed the ballot
boxes against him. He was defeated
ignominiously The platform of the
States is in perfect accord with the fact
that from the schoOl-books of the
South every sentiment tending to pro-
mote National patriotism is carefully
excluded. 1t is in perfect accord with
the spirit of bitter animosity exhibited
by every Southern Congressman towa d
the National army. 1t is in perfect ac-
cord with the Democratic Congress
sional caucus attempt to deprive
the Nation of all supervisory pow
er over Congressional elections. The
platform of the States is threat
that the South will rule or ruin
the Nation by fraud and intrigue, since
it failed to destroy it by the sword; and
there is not a particle of evidence to
show that the platform of the States is
not, in fact, the platform of the great
bulk of the Southern people. The
Southern people do not support papers
which violently antagonize their cher
ished sentiments; but they support
the States! They do not tolerate wide
differences of opinion on political or
other questions; they objected to the
negro voting the Republican ticket in
Mississippi, and the objection was so
forcible that the negro stopped voting!
The States declares that the white peo-
pie of Mississippi hate the Nation, and
if need be, will draw their swords and
smite it to death! Is there Northern
man so blind as not to see that, if the
people of Mississippi really love and
reverence the Nation as Lamar says
they do, they would throw the Okolona
States press into the nearest frog pond
and Danish the presumptuous editors!
The editors of the States know very well
ON which side their bread is buttered.
They know that " Southern society is
smoldering volcano, charged not only
with the passions and hates of the re-
bellion, but with the hot embers of 250
years of the reign of slavery" They
know that loyalty to the Nation is a
sentiment almost unknown to the peo-
pie of the lately seeded States; they
rest secure in this knowledge; they bank
on this capital, and their drafts are
honored-honored the more surely as
they are drawn with pen dipped in
gall ON paper water-marked with
bloody threats. The sectional issue
was raised by the Democratic caucus at
Washington-the caucus controlled by
Southern Congressman. The Black
burn clan threatened revolution, the
would-be conservatives followed the
radicals the Northern doughface has
tened to give in his adhesion, and soon
the whole pack were in full cry. What
more natural than that the inhammable
South should start out on fresh cru
sade against the life of the NationP
This match was struck at Washington;
the Okolona States lit its torch, and the
flames spread in every direction; and
there is nobody at the South with moral