Year: 1872

The news We are receiving through our
special correspondence of the troubles in Ar
kansas gives rise to grave approximations that
the bloody drama there is spreading and be-
coming intensified Our dispatches from
Little Rock, Memphis and Washington repre-
sent a fearful state Of things The citi-
zens of Mississippi county were under arms
and under great excitement, as reports had
reached them that bands of hostile negroes
were advancing from several directions. A
great number of prisoners had been brought
in, and the jails were crowded to suffocation
Citizens were shipping their families and
property on board steamers to get them away
from danger. Some Of the prisoners captured
were wounded, and it was believed many were
killed on the roads, A gang of ferocieus look
ing negroes, armed with formidable weapons,
stopped the steamer Celeste ON her way to
Memphis, and demanded that the boat should
turn back and convey them to Osceola,
the scene of disorder. Armed bands were
seen in other parts, and the whole
country was in state of wild terror. One
Fitzpatrick, who appears to be leader Of the
negroes, was arousing q large force, and with
view seemingly to plunge the county into
civil war. A despatch from Washington
stated that the troubles In Pope county were
settled but at the same time another de-
spatch from Little Rock reports that fresh
troubles had broken out and'that greater diff
ficulties were apprehended. The immediate
cause of these disorders and the details Of
their development have been given in our cor
respondence from Arksnsas, and it is unneces-
sary to recapitulate them. They arose from
political conflicts, engendered chiefly by un-
scrupulous carpet-baggers, and have culmi-
mated in an incipient war between the white
and black races


The statesman whose remains were given to
the earth at Auburn on Monday first pro-
nounced, we believe, those ominous words
the ''irrepressible conflict" They were
uttered while Mr.. Seward was o Senator of the
United States and when he was leading the
anti-slavery movement in this country. He
had said previously that there was higher


law than the constitution-the law of con-


science and public opinion-when referring to


the question Of slavery, and the irrepressible


conflict meant the antagonism that did exist
and could not be suppressed between the free
Northern States and the South on this question.


Believing that slavery must be extinguished
some time in this free Republic, and that
it was necessary that it should be, he used his
great abilities to that end. We all know what
followed. The conflict of words and passions
resulted in the most terrible civil war, and
slavery WAS blotted out with the blood of hun
dreds OF thousands Of our citizens and at a
cost of thousands of millions of money
The vision of the statesman did not, perhaps,
reach beyond the emancipation of the black
race nor did Mr.. Seward stop to consider the
cost of accomplishing that; for with him the
principle involved YVES of paramount consider
would be any serious war over this question
or at the worst, not such a terrible war as we
went through. Still, as we said, he was not a
man likely to look to consequences when the
question was one of conscience, justice or po-
litical necessity. He did not care, probably,
to look beyond the abolition of slavery. He
was content to leave the consequences to the
future and to the wisdom and sense of right of
the American people. It is proper to say here,
in justice to the memory Of the deceased
statesman, that having brought the irrepressi-
BILE conflict to the end he had in view-the
freedom of the negroes-he became conserva-
tive, and endeavored to produce harmony be-
tween the two races in the South.


Those who followed Mr. Seward in the con-
troll Of public affairs were more radical They
were not contented with emancipating the
negroes, giving them the suffrage and securing
to them by amendments to the constitution
and through the law all the rights and privi-
leges that white citizens enjoy, but were
resolved, for political objects, to virtually
make the blacks the ruling power in the South
ern States 1t is this policy which has pro-
duced the fearful state of things in Arkansas,
which has led to the unblushing official rob-
berry and decentralization in South Carolina,
Georgia, Louisiana and other States, and
which threatens to bring on war Of races at
no distant day throughout the South generally.
No other civilized State in modern times has
exhibited such q spectacle of official villany
and degraded practices as have been witnessed
in South Carolina under negro rule and that of
the white carpet-baggers, who are the allies of
the negroes against the people of their own
race and blood. The orgies at the State capi-
tai, Columbia, among the negro men and wo-
men and their white allies, the trading in
votes of the Legislature through degraded
colored women, and the plunder Of the Treas
ury and taxpayers have not been exceeded in
the black Republic of Hayti, and that is saying
a great deal. So in other Southern States
decentralization has grown rank in proportion
to the negro population and its influence in
the local governments And how could it be
otherwise? The most intelligent and capable
people have been ostracised, and the most