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About The banner of the South. (Augusta, Ga.) 1868-1870 | View Entire Issue (June 13, 1868)
4 of .I.the: Tr*^>> iM m€m y < '-'^^f^ ;/ REV. A. J. RYAN, Editor- AUGUSTaTgA.; JUNE 18, 1868.’ FACTS. It is a fact, that the politicians of the Country are principally men of very little real education. It is a fact, that they are generally men of still loss principle. It is a fact, that they arc chiefly men of no practical religion. It is a fact, that they play with the tremendous trusts reposed in their hands, as if they were mere trifles- It is a fact, that they procure votes for themselves by making appeals to the passions of the populace, rather than by fair, honest arguments addressed to the people’s intelligence. It is a fact, that in giving their own votes on gravest ques tions, involving gravest interests, they are influenced more by partizan preju dice than by principles of duty. It is a fact, that the people, whom they delude, praise and applaud them. It is a fact, that, while they too often forget the people’s interests, they are very careful to remember their own. It is a fact, that, whether they neglect or fulfil their duties, they never fail to draw every dollar of their pay. It is a fact, that all of them take solemn oaths to support the Consti tution, and that many perjure themselves the very next day by “ acting outside of its provisions.” It is a fact, that this perjury gives many of them claims to greater honor and certainties of being re elected, in order to have the happy op portunity of perjuring themselves again. It is a fact, that, with very many of them, a case must be decided, not by and on its own merits, but by “outside pressure. 5 It is a fact, that scenes and sayings which would disgrace the lowest haunt of de pravity, now often dignify their sessions. It is a fact, that “bets’ 5 have been intro duced as a direct power in our legislation. It is a fact, that the three stars of the General-in-Chief of the Army guide many a man, and measure, and vote. It is a fact, that the sword of that General-in- Chief, like every other sword, is double edged—it can defend and it can rend any right. It is a fact, that all these facts, and many more like them, arc plain and palpable to all the people. And, from all these facts, doubtless flows the fact that “ this is the Gov ernment the world ever saw.” So let us repeat that consolatory phrase every day, and rest satisfied. THE TRAMP OF THE DESPOT, Across the narrow stream which divides the States of Georgia and South Carolina, comes the deep thud of the Tyrant’s tramp, as he moves on to new deeds of despotism, and sets his foot more firmly and more heavily upon the necks of a gallant but weak and powerless, people, Ah! how the blood boils in the veins the teeth gnash together, and the hands clinch, as the rod of the Despot waves over a noble but enslaved State ! Intelligent, proud, hospitable, in peace; brave, heroic, gallant, in war, the people of South Carolina are now suffering under a tyranny more galling and terrible than those of her Southern sister States—gall ing and terrible as they are. But a few days ago, a number of dozens of Ham burg were dragged from their homes, and made to perforin the most menial and de grading services, simply because they would not let a political party have the use of a church which was under their control. They had a right to refuse the use of the edifice for the orgies of the ene mies of their country ; and, in exercising this right, they violated no law, no mili tary order. But the Gesler of South Carolina, cannot brook the cold contempt which the people there feel for him, and are too proud, too candid, to even wish to conceal; and so must needs vent his wrath upon the innocent and unoffending. And yet the bitter cup of woe is not full. Carolina, thy humiliation is not complete. The vultures who are batter ing upon thy chained and lacerated limbs are not satiated. You will not bow to Gesler’s cap as you pass it in the streets, and you make no genuflexions to shoulder straps, or to “ flaunting lies,” as they wave over your desolated land. And so your humiliation is not complete. Those who were once your slaves—those who, now, as then, are your inferiors—must be placed over you, and sit in your council chambers to make laws for you, and com plete your galling list of woes. Seven Negroes in the Council Chamber of Charleston 1 Seven Negroes by order of Gesler 1 And yet you bend not the knee or bow the head, stiff-necked people of South Carolina. And yet, you point to Gesler. with the finger of scorn, and sigh for a Tell, a Gofer, to rid you of his tyranny. 0! be firm ! be patient! The day of deliverance is at hand, and the sun of justice will soon, we hope, light you on to freedom, peace,- and prosperity once more. The people of the North, we are told, are awaking “ to the sin and failure” of Reconstruction, and are preparing to hurl from power the minions of tyranny. Be patient. The days of Nero, of Dyo nisius, of Gesler, are numbered. Be pa tient. The galling chains of tyranny will, ere long, be stricken from your limbs, and the fetters now prepared for you be fastened upon your oppressors. Be patient, he firm, preserve your man hood and your dignity; the God of Jus tice will right the .suffering South yet; and, though we have no faith in man, yet let us not lose faith in God—but, trusting in Him, yielding no principle of right or ustiee, ever maintaining a strict and pa triotic integrity, we must and will pass safely through this fiery ordeal, while the bitter cup of woe prepared for us will be forced upon those who have so prepared it. WHAT DOES IT MEAN? What is the meaning of the frequent attacks made of late in Northern papers against the Catholic Church ? A few days ago there was a howl from the New York Tribune against us; then was a bark from some paper in the State of Maine ; then was a mutter of wrath from Forney's papers; and then, as if the key note of widely-spread feelings had been struck, various other papers, almost simultaneously, began to assail the old Church. Is this to be the next watch word ? Is this to be the rallying cry of party ? Does it forbode persecution ? Is the long threatened storm about to break ? It once was said : “ First get rid of slavery—then of Popery ?” Is the saying to be realized ? Is this to be a part of the logic of events ? We would not wonder. The men who trampled down the altars of liberty in the South, are just the men to lay their sacriligeous hands on the altars of religion. The men who tore into shreds the Banner of our freedom, arc the very men who would try to wrest from us the Banner of the Cross. Our Church is conservative — the strongest conservative element in this country. To old traditions she clings as a mother to her children. No Church in this country has more faithfully respected and more deeply loved the Constitution. Protected by it, she protects it in turn. What she is on this continent she is in Europe —the strongest conservative ele ment. Revolutionists hate her there— Their brethren iiate her here. They as sail her there —they may try to attack her here. Let them—she glories in the honor of persecution. It is the priceless gem in the crown she wears. She has learned how to bend her head to the exe cutioner’s axe. She has not learned how, nor ever will, to bend her knee to political iniquity. If you wish to make her triumph, per secute her. She mourns over every lost cause that was just; but, her own she knows, can never be lost, ior lie is with her who overcame the world. “SOUTHERN CHRISTIAN ADVOCATE.” In last week’s issue of the “ Southern Christian Advocate we came across the poor ghost of an argument, shaking its fleshless fist right furiously at St- Peter because he stands too prominently forward in the 16th chapter of St Mat thew’s Gospel; and the same ghost mut tered, in pretty respectable phraseology, ever so many incoherent things against the plain meanings of the chapter. Pity St. Matthew was such a plain writer. Pity he made such clear, simple state ments, for he has made it a difficult and troublesome task to explain away his meaning. That 16th chapter of his has gone through a long, strange history of perversions of meaning, mis-translations. sophistical explanations, and absurd com mentaries. Some men try to make it mean something, everything, or anything, except what it plainly signifies. And St. Peter, who figures so prominently in the chapter, has suffered very much at the hands of would-be-wise Bible scholars —but we presume that lie looks leniently on ignorance. It is somewhat strange, that, while to the most superficial reader, he occupies the forefront of the scene de scribed in that chapter, some Imagine it is not his place, and wish to thrust him into the back-ground. The writer in the “ Southern Chris tian Advocate" brings forward eight argu ments (?) against Peter’s being the rock on which the Church is built. St. Mat thew must have pretty plainly stated that St. Peter is the Rock, if it takes so many arguments to prove that St. Peter is not the Rock. Why did not Matthew say that St. Peter was not the Rock, once for all and ever, and be done with it ? He would have saved controversialists a great deal of trouble. The writer in the “ Southern Christian Advocate ’’ is gen erous enough, however, to let St. Peter be “ a little stone;’ 5 though, in making that admission, he argues (?) as if our Saviour spoke the words in the Greek language. If He did, it is news to us. If He did not speak in Greek, how base an argument on a false supposition ? We do not intend to argue the question, how ever. The chapter reads in favor of St. Peter and the Catholic interpretation. It needs no argument to prove our meaning —the bare reading is sufficient. It does require a great many arguments to disprove our interpretation. And, lor the life of us, we cannot see how the Scriptures arc so easily understood if it takes so very many arguments to make us understand them. A NEW APPLICATION OF THE POWER OF PRAYER. In the impeachment farce all sorts of appliances were employed in order to pro cure the deposition of the President. The country was ransacked for evidence ; witnesses were summoned from all points of the compass; much testimony was manufactured to order; a great amount of money was spent (Satan knows how and why); letters poured in from all parts of the country, demanding, right or wrong, the President’s conviction; avast deal of betting bad its own influence ; but there was another power brought to bear upon the case—unknown hitherto in trials and tribunals —the power of prayer. A certain member of the impeachment gang began to vacillate in regard to the manner in which he would vote. Another mem ber, in great anxiety, telegraphs to a cer tain so-called Bishop Simpson the sad news of the probable defection of the above member from the Radical side. Straightway the so-called Bishop tele graphs : “Pray with Brother Wiley”— and Bishop Simpson’s friend did pray with Brother Wiley, and lie was saved, and cast his vote against the President. So much for the power of prayer. And thus we progress. First came political preaching; then followed political pray ing ; then came war sermons ; then fol lowed war prayers ; then originated Re construction preaching; then Reconstruc tion prayers; then impeachment sermons; then Anti-Andrew Johnson prayers. And next, we expect Grant sermons and Grant prayers. And it all plainly proves that this is the “best Government the world ever saw.” ARE WE PARTIZAN ? “Do not become too partizan 1” Such was the admonition of a subscriber a short time since. We disclaim all parti zanship. Neither are we.politicians, nor place-hunters. We seek only to promote the interests of our Religion and the welfare of our Country. The former has penetrated the thick clouds of prejudice, and her glory and her greatness shine resplendent throughout this broad South ern land ; the latter—our Country, our South—is sorely oppressed ; the heavy hand of the despot is on her, crushing out her heart’s blood, drop by drop. It is this most foul injustice, this national dis grace, this fratricide, that makes us par tizan, if part : zan we are. But we disclaim it. If, however, it be considered partizan to uphold the justice of the Southern cause ; to cherish its defeats and its tri umphs; to venerate its dead, and to love its living, heroes ; to denounce the na tional disgrace, the Radical Congress ; to protest against and condemn Radical reconstruction; to denounce military rule, and its legitimate sequence, military despotism ; to cry oat against the injustice and the sin of military commissions, and the arrest and imprisonment of our peo ple, without any regard to the forms of justice and law ; to abhor the elevation to office of had and unprincipled men, out casts and perjurers ; to protest against the degradation of deposing intelligence, respectability, and capacity, from the places of honor and trust, in our Southern land, to give place to ignoiance, vice and low cunning; to proclaim and insist that this is a white man's Government; and that the South is entitled to her constitu tional rights in the Union as co-equal sovereign States ; if, therefore, in a word, it be partizanship to condemn what is radically wrong, and to approve and ad vocate what we have been taught, and what we believe, to be right, is to be partizan, then we are content to be so; and we want to be always partizans of right as against might—of the oppressed against the oppressor—of the bleeding, manacled South against the despotism of Radicalism and the tyranny which now grinds us in the dust. So long as our Father above gives us the strength and the ability to defend our birthright, we shall plead for it, and never strike a truce with the merciless enemy who is now robbing us of all that is dear to the heart of every Southerner. This, and only this, is the meaning of our partizanship. THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION. The nominations of the Chicago Con vention have elicited no enthusiasm from the people. There have been no guns, no bonfires, no meetings, no bells, no glo rifications, in the North. Even the politi cal and social equality advocates in the South failed to get their suffragans to give the Radical nominees a cheer. This indifference augurs defeat for the choice of that wicked party which has bank rupted the whole country, and involved us of the South in social, political, and commercial ruin—capping the climax of our woes with a grinding despotism, which usurps our rights and liberties, and leaves our lives at the mercy of petty tyrants and military commissions. This is the party of Grant and Colfax ; this is the party which has reduced the country to its present deplorable condition, and this is the infamous party which the pec ple will crush out of existence at the bal lot-box at the Presidential election The Democratic party —the party of jus tice, order, law—the party of the Constitu tion—the party of Washington, Adams, Jackson—is the party that will elect the next President, restore the Southern States to the Union, preserve true re publican government, and save the country from the destruction which lias already set in, and is now slowly but surely gnawing out the vitals of the Constitution. No other party can heal the ravages of this black vomit of Radicalism, and restore the patient to its former healthy condi tion. Chief Justice Chase can’t do it. He has had too much practice in the school of Abolitionism and Radicalism lie was an Abolitionist per se ; and did as much as any other Black Republican to hound on the war against the South and bring about the subsequent indignities heaped upon us. He defiled the judicial ermine in eanvassing the negro element at the South for their votes, to influence his nom ination ; Mr. Chase permitted the mill* tarv satraps in our midst to sot the laws aside and substitute their own whims and opinions. These are a few of the reasons why the Chief Justice will not do for the Standard-bearer in the approaching can vass. There are many others which can be produced. Mr. Chase is not a Demo crat. He is a Chase man—not a princi ple man—and no such man will ever do justice to the South. Had he received the Radical nomination he would most as suredly have accepted. This alone is sufficient to condemn him. Some papers North are speaking <f Mr. Chase as the Democratic candidate of the moneyed in to rest—the bondholders and the National Banks. This is our reason for ventilating Mr. Chase. If we ot tin* South are to have any voice in this mat ter, if our wishes are to be consulted, then we don’t like Mr. Chase ; and while our people are ever so anxious to shake off this killing Radical yoke,-with Mr. Chase as the next President, and negro manhood suffrage, without qualifications, as a plank in his platform, the change w mid be a sorry one—simply a change of tad; masters If our views are to be consult ed—the views of the Southern people— we want a straight out and out Demo cratic ticket. We want a man selected who has piinciple, and nerve, and ability to meet the coming issues, and clean out. when in office, the corruption which is eating up our rights and liberties, and stealing and squandering private and pub lic property. If the Democratic party i to whip this fight it must be on a square Democratic platform. There must be n ■ half way measures—no compromise with the fiends who have trampled on the Con atitution and broken up the Unino, and now spit upon the one and despise the other. The people of the whole country desir ■ peace ; they want civil liberty preserved, the Constitution respected, and the Union re-established. We, of the South, it may be said, should leave these nominations to the Northern Democracy, but lest the silent' of the Press should be taken as a sort < ; acquiesence on the part of the people t i the nomination of Mr. Chase or any other Radical as the Democratic Candida!, wc but re-echo the voice of our people 1:, rejecting Mr, Chase. George 11. Pendleton, or anv other aLi• * and consistent Northern man, will recen the united vote of our people, should the Radical Congressional Despotism grant that privilege, which is a matter of serious doubt, unless all the chances f •; carrying their satrapies are in favor G their candidates. IYe don’t want Mr Chase. That’s all. 11 Is record is too black. MILITARY DESPOTISM, \v e want our friends in the North and West, and especially tlie Catholic pres , to understand that the Southern peoph have no rights or liberties, save what ar optional with the Military Dictato; Here, in the Third Military District, th subjects are most grievously oppressed. General Meade has only to ring the lit? bell on his left hand, and the writer, or tiny other subject in his District, is ca.-t into prison, and no explanation made or charges preferred. In the city of Colum bus, Georgia, some fifty arrests lav. recently been made by order of Gcnei i Meade. No charges preferred, and no ex planations by the officers making the arrest, except, perhaps, ,l it is in accordance with orders from headquarters.'’ This - the new dispensation —the Radical pensation—which secures to every Ameri can citizen hastiles and military commi sions, and these are the institutions which are now to he found in almost every town and city from the Potomac to the Rio Grande—securing to every m all
