The Southern Enterprise

Patriotic Letter from Ex-Governor
Perry

The following letter was addressed to the
Committee of Arrangements of the Banquet
held in Washington to celebrate the 8th of
January :

GREENVILLE, S. C., Jan. 3, 1868.

J. D. Hoover, Esq., Chairman, &c., &c.:

Your kind invitation to a banquet given at
the Metropolitan Hotel, celebrating the fifty-
third anniversary of the battle of New Orleans
was received yesterday morning.

Would to God it were in my power to be
with you and the generous patriots who will
assemble on that occasion to do honor to a
"Southern hero and Southern soldiery," and
"re-arouse a noble sympathy for the descen-
dants of those who so nobly illustrated the
patriotism and prowess of the American citi-
zen."

The Southern heart, crushed and broken by
terrific calamities, social and political, appeals
at this time to every generous and manly feel-
ing of the North. Never before in the histo-
ry of a Christian and civilized people have
such infamy and ruin, wide spread and uni-
versal, been inflicted on a whole section of the
country, without distinction between the guilty
and the innocent. It is well known that a
large portion of the Southern people were.

opposed to the secession of the States from
the Federal Union, and did all they could do
for years to prevent the happening of so dire
a calamity to the republic. They have suf-
fered the destruction of their property, the loss
of their homes, and the death of their sons
and husbands: and now, as a reward for their
life's devotion to the Union, they are doomed
to negro supremacy and the barbaric rule of
their former slaves, steeped in ignorance and
vice. Virtue and innocence, refinement
wealth and intelligence are disfranchised and
subjected to the government of ignorance
pauperism and selfish cruelty.

The future of the Southern States is fright-
fully appalling. Experience, for the past two
years, has proved that the freedmen will not
work, and that they expect to live by the
bounty of the government, or by depredation
on the industry of others! All over the
country, starvation threatens them, and they
are stealing, robbing and murdering. The
prisons and penitentiaries are filled with
them, till it has become impossible to provide
for their support in prison. Soon they will
have the government of the States in their
hands! Self-defence and self preservation
will force a war of races--the most cruel, un-
natural, and horrible war that ever desolated
the face of the earth !

You have well said, in your letter of invita-
tion, that we are "bone of your bone and
flesh of your flesh," and entitled to a nation's
sympathy in our distress. We are all, North
and South, the descendants of a common an-
cestry, the sons and grandsons of Revolution-
ary sires, who achieved American indepen-
dence, and established the Union and the
Constitution to ensure domestic tranquility
and secure the blessings of liberty "to them-
themselves and their posterity. How little did
those heroic, noble patriots suppose that they
were securing domestic tranquility and the
blessings of liberty to their descendants by
providing the means, within less than a cen-
tury, of their descendants being disfranchised
and placed under a government of negroes
If there is a sense of justice or a manly senti-
ment of honor left in the Northern heart, it
must revolt at this horrible iniquity.

Southern man led our armies to victory
and independence in the Revolutionary war;
a Southern man drew the Declaration of In-
dependence; a Southern man has the reputa-
tion of being the father of our National Con-
stitution. He was a Southern man who gain-
ed the glorious victory, whose anniversary
you are to celebrate on the 8th of January,
which you say "confirmed our national inde-
pendence and free Republican institutions in
a Union of law and liberty." The Chief Jus-
tice of the United States who interpreted and
established the principles of the Federal Con-
stitution was a Southern man. For more
than a half century the administration of our
national affairs was controlled by Southern
men, under whose wise statesmanship the
American Republic has spread over a whole
continent, and become one of the greatest
powers of the world. During the war of 1812
the Southern people were not surpassed by
any section, in patriotism and gallantry, and
in the war with Mexico their sons rushed, as
volunteers, to the defence of their country,
honor and glory." Have they not a claim,
then, to their country's sympathy in their
distress and desolation ? Shall it be recorded
in history that such a people were, by their
own brethren and blood, disfranchised and
placed under the cruel and infamous despo-
tism of their former slaves, an inferior and
barbarous race of paupers?

The Southern people are powerless and
helpless at this time, and their only hope is in
a returning sense of justice on the part of
their Northern and Western brethren. They
expect nothing; and hope for nothing from the
present Congress. The leaders of the Radical
party have shown themselves insensible to
justice, honor and patriotism. Their sole pur-
pose is to perpetuate their own power by the
destruction of the Constitution and all the
principles of republicanism. Liberty is first
to be crushed out of the Southern States, and
then with those Africanized rotten boroughs
they hope to control the white race North!
They will hold in their hands twenty-four
black Senators and eighty black members of
Congress, with a President elected by negroes.
Are the Northern people willing to submit to
such a government, and be controlled by such
an Africanized South?

I pray to God to avert such calamities, and
I have not yet lost hope and faith in the
North, the East, and the West.

With sentiments of profound respect, I am
yours truly, &c.

B. F. PERRY.