Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 8, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 March 1884 — A BASE FABRICATION. [ARTICLE]

A BASE FABRICATION.

Exposure of a Vile Attempt of the Republican Members of the Coplab Committee to Manufacture Political Capital by Circulating a Wretched Lie. A week or two ago the following dispatch wai sent out from Washington, and has been printed in nearly all the Republican papers in the land: Republican members of the Copiah Cbm-mlttc-e say that at one of the balls given in New Orleans, at the Mardi-Gras, Jefferson Davis, with his daughter, the daughter of Gen. Lee, Gen. Longstreet, and some other noted Confederate generate, eat in a box which was drained with Confederate flags; that a floral sword, decorated with the Confederate colors and addressed simply “To the President," was presented to this noted exConfederate party in the box, and was accepted. “.And,” said one of these committeemen, “I did not think that that looked very much like reconstruction. In a good many countries of the civilized world it would be called treason.” The New Orleans Times-Democrat, one of the most conservative journals in the South, comments upon the above as follows: We doubt if there be a singlotruthful sen* tence in this whole telegram. It is true that the daughters of Gen. Lee wore there, but not that the daughter of Gen. Longstreet was with them. It is also true that the box was draped, but not true that it was draped with Coulederate flags. It is true that Mr. Jefferson Davis was in the box, but it was also true that Admiral Cooper, of the United States navy, was, with bis wife, in the box with him. It is true that a floral sword was presented, but it is not true that it was presented to Mr. Davis. It is true that the sword bore a legend, but utter!*- and absurdly false that ths legend lead: “To the President.” The simple truth is, that the presentation was nothing more than a tribute of respect and affection from Gen. Lee’s so.diers to Gen. Lee’s daughters. It bore the inscription, “The Lee,” and possessed no earthly significance beyond that which appeared upon the surface. It was designed to tell the orphaned daughters of a brave and honorable gentleman that his old comrades held his memory in love and reverence. The human being who could misunderstand or misrepresent a demonstration so innocent and to beautiful must be base indeed, afnd we do not envy Senators Cameron, Hoar, and Frye, among whom tho edium seems to be distributed. We believe all three of these patriots and gentlemen were invited to the ball, and, therefore, the one who gave tho alleged information had the opportunity, at least, of knowing that it was utterly and unqualifiedly false both in substance and intention. These ladies sat in the box with a distinguished leader of tho now dead and burled Confederacy, and with an officer of high rank in the Federal navy. The box was draped in red, white, and blue, and tho tribute presented to the daughters of Lee was the emblem of a sword which was never sullied by any mean or ignoble deed—a simple and loving testimonial to two fatherless ladies, and wrought in flowers which are now as dead and withered as the regrets that welled up in live million hearts on the day that saw their cause entombed some nineteen years ago. Just one week after the Mistick Krewe ball and the events which some evil heart has so cruelly distorted, the Misses Lee stood under an awning of Uniled States flags to see the firemen’s procession pass. They were as unconscious then of any rebuke to thebause for which Stonewall Jackson laid down his noble life as they were innocent of treason to the Government under which they live when they accepted the tribute to their father’s pure and spotless memory. The whole fabrication we have quoted is a mean and contemptible falsehood from beginning to end. There is not a fiber of it but is steeped in malice and baseness. If any of the three Republican Senators present in New Orleans at the time has authorized this wretched slander, he is unworthy to touch the hand of any honest man, North or South, Republican or Democrat, who values the integrity of his word or loves tho white raiment of his honor.