Year: 1866

radical, Hon. w. ID. Kelly, of Philadelphia


to Alfred M. WaddelI, ESQ, of Wilmington


who had addressed him on the state of the


country Those of our readers who are


afraid of &c the radicals, will observe from


this letter that Mr.. Kelly is a human being,


and not one of those Molochs whom we are


told by some would have us pass through all


kinds of horrors on our way back to the


g old homestead" Certain people told us in


1860 that if we did not secede and get away
from "the radicals" they would ruin us


world without end and now these same


people tell us that if we go back to the


.adicals" we shall be degraded and destroy


ID and annihilated for ever and ever, and


,verlastingly, amen! In 1860 we were told


that if we were not for the negro we were


traitors and abolitionists and now we are


;old that if we are not against the negro we


ire radicals - - enemies to the "sunny


SOUTH" and a great many terrible things
What shall we do? Must we be be led any


longer by those who have so frequently de-


eived us, and who are the real authors of


I'll our woes? We trust not -


WASHINGTON, D. c., April %, 1866.


ALFRED M. WADDELI.. ESQ,


Wilmington, ~. c.:


DEAR SIR In the hope of receiving your


'emarks of July goth, which 1 fear have mis-


;arried, have delayed my reply to your fa-


,or of the 18th, the receipt of which gave


ne much pleasure You were not probably


lware, when penning your frank and


thoroughly manly letter, that you were adj


lressng the most outspoken, if not absolutely


he most extreme Radical of the House.


Such is my recognized position; yet no man


:an be more anxious than 1 to forget every


act of the past, the recollection of which is


calculated to continue those sectional en-
mites" which plunged us into war and
made that war so inetfably sanguinary. You
sadly misapprehend the men of my type and


he people of the North generally, when you


hink they desire to humiliate the people of
he South that we wish to force you to al


ow that the slaves you have held are your


quals, socially and politically, or that we
lesire to force perfect negro equality upon
you when we do not recognize it at home
The Civil Rights Bill is of universal applica-
ion. l will enclose you a paragraph show
ing its effect in Indiana and [ have advised
The colored men of my native city-Phila-
delphia, should our Supreme Court fail to
approve the decision of our Common Pleas
that they have the right to ride in our street
ears, to raise the question under that act
Social equality, my dear sir, is the result of
taste and atfinities and classes in social life
IRE as well defined in the two most (philoso-
phically) democratic States, Vermont and
Massachusetts,, as they are anywhere in the
South. Nor does the possession of equal
political rights ensure political equality. 1t
does but render it possible. Will, energy,
intellect and the power of cOmbinatinn are
lie secrets of power. Nothing in history so
sorcibly illustrates the fact that compact
minority may rule free republic as that the
extreme men of the South controlled the
country from the close of the last war with
England to the firing on Sumter.


Could we sit together for an afternoon I'M
der the shade OF either of our rooftrees.
would gladly discuss these questions with
you, but on paper we cannot do it.


Our positions, differing so widely, are
equally beset with difficulties. Neither side
is free from preiudices. Both have intense
convictions. Pride besets you, and mag
nanimity comes as snare to us. war
which devastated so wide and fertile a re-
gion-which cost many hundred thou
sands of lives, and SO many thousand mil
lions of dollars ought not to terminate with
out the eXtinguishment of its cause and an
adequate guarantee against its repetition
This suggestion makes the g arimus - of the
Southern people pregnant consideration to
which l allude merely to disabuse your mind
as to the personal character of inquiries up
on that question. Our late war was more
clearly a contest for ideas than any that pre-
ceded it. 1t was. in truth. a struggle be-
tween. two orders of civilization. between
which, existing under one popular govern
ment as they did, there was, much as we dis
like the phrase, an irrepressible conflict
Your system required the repression of the
intellect and aspirations of the laboring peo-
pie, who always must be numerically the
mass of the people. 1t was not consonant
with that of other lands, and engendered
modes of thought and purposes at variance
with them. Thus it was that YOU so closely
supervised your press, that your booksellers
were so cautious to the publications they
admitted to their catalogues, and that stran-
gers other than those who accepted, or pro-
Icssed to accept, your most extreme opinions
were so unweicome among you. On the
other hand, we stimulated, by every means
free schools, free libraries, scientific insti-
tutlons with lectures to apprentices, &c. &c.
intellectual aspirations and enter
prise of the lowliest among us.


In Difference to your interests, it is true,
we fostered a prejudice which excluded those
who were not white. But this is the case no
longer, for there was a large infusion of col
ored people seated miscellaneously in the
two last public assemblages l attended in
Unlike you, we sought the
largest interchange of thought with all the
world and welcomed every new contributor
Dr. contribution to our literature, science art
DR. practical affairs. Cannot this difference
be removed Ought it not to be removed2
Would not all be blessed by its removal p
And can it be done while we ignore the
of the colored citizens of the coun-
try2 Remember, dear sir: that they are
more than four-sevenths of the people of
South Carolina and are in the majority by
more than 10000 in Mississippi. 1t is not
our wish to control you on this subject. 1t
is our hope that you will grapple with and
solve the great problem submitted to you by
the authors of the war; The issue between
us was submitted to the arbitrament of arms.
We were successful and 1 submit frankly to
you whether that fact did not devolve upon
US the duty of so adjusting the final terms of
peace as to prevent recurrence of the war
from the same cause.


I have not answered your Propositions
Perhaps 1 could not do it; but 1 have writ
ten frankly as to dear countryman who was
unjustly estranged. You will pardon the