Show TEE OLD CRT A leading newspaper of therfonth the Greenville South CrolinaZfcttu says Today ninetynine of eVE Y hundred Southern men believe that I the emancipation of the slaves was lv the greatest blessing the South hast has-t ever received and the best thing that could have been done for her 1 It adds in the same article It made the white people a manly self f reliant independent Democratic I f and united race Slavery was fast ij t enervating ihem into hostile factions ij 1 fac-tions and classes Labor as the badge and province of the slave wag brought into contempt when I I millions ofwhite people of all classes tfj were forced to become laborers I 16 labor became honorable and is I today our strength and power r In an article on the same subject I the Chronicle of Augusta Georgi 2 t also a prominent journal says How dreadfully was the south misled by her orators and doctrinaires f doctrin-aires The rational course to have 1 t pursued would have been gradual f voluntary emancipation by the federal government This plan was feasible but did not meet the views 1 of leading dominant politicians I i g Had it done so what misery what i r losses moral and materiaJ would I I t have been avoided But the south i ir j followed the fiery eloquent unwise p spirits and saved nothing but her L J militaryJionor These admissions I 1r I are as manly as they are true The 1 il southern people are a better a 11 1 nobler and more independent people r peo-ple in every way than they were in f f I i slavery times and every year they S t are improving as individuals and as t citizens The masses of the negroes r j ne-groes are those who have suffered I from the abolition of slavery and i V after a generation or two have t 1 passed and the blacks are educated I and trained to their new and exalted condition they also will reap the benefits of the better and morel M more-l humane order of things l j lint in tile lace or just sucn sincere i sin-cere admissions as the above and tr while all intelligent people of the J south are declaring themselves well t pleased with the change though they may be opposed to the manner In which it was brought about the 1 south Insulted and abused every four years as if it were a menace to ft I the Union A leading Kepublican ri organ in the east directs attention t as if there were cause for alarm in itto the circumstance that if a Democrat i Dem-ocrat should be chosen President next fall it would necessarily be by k Ii the votes of the southern state and L I that he would owe his office to the support of exrebels This Is put out i J as a scare crow and may have some f f i effect on the ignorant and stupid If i f I but it should have none on intelligent A I intelli-gent persons The southern people T 4 1 are today as devoted to the Union 41 as are the people of New England j and if the time came for them to 1 fight for its preservation they would j j demonstrate how mistaken they were twentyefour years ago by taking up arms and standing it shoulder to shoulder with their f northern brethren in fighting their countrys foe The southren statesmen states-men are as patriotic as are the statesmen states-men of Massachusetts and as full of love for the republic and Its ik institutions we are not certain that 7 they are not better friends to the nation than the New Engenders I for they stand closer to the Constitution Consti-tution It is as much an insult to northern intelligence as It ia to southern loyalty for the Bepubli I can orators and organs to repeat I this senseless slander about the j people who made a mistake but were convinced of their error and t long since were willing to acknow ledcelt |