The weekly pioneer and Democrat. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. Territory) 1855-1865, 1863-06-19
THE TRUE NATIONAL POLICY.
The Abolition Policy and the Union,
-L at the West.
LETTER FROM
HON. EMERSON ETHERIDGE,
TO THE CITIZENS OF MEMPHIS.
LETTER FROM
WASHINGTON, May 10, 1868.

WASHINGTON, May 10, 1oO0.
GENTLEMEN: 1 have just received your letter
of the 9TH instant, inviting me, in behalf of the
Washington Union Club of Memphis to join
in the public celebration of the anniversary OF
the surrender of that city to the Federal arms.
You also speak kindly Of my past efforts to in
duce the people of West Tennessee to consent
to 1.-THE restoration of the national authority
throughout the State"
If believed that by meeting you on the Oc-
casion referred to could be OF service to a
single law-abiding citizen, or truly repentant
rebel, or that I could contribute, to the least
extent, in ending the war and restoring the
blessings of peace under the Constitution,
would certainly attend. But l have no such
faith in myself, and therefore shall not go.
In your letter you express the opinion that
by "a direct personal appeal" 1 might :" en-
courage the loyal or reclaim the dislOyal"
confess my establishment at such statement:
and I can attribute this opinion of yours to
nothing but a failure on your part to cOmpre-
bend the mastery policy of our great and good
President and the wise statesmen who aid him
in shaping and directing the civil policy of the
government. When you have fully studied
and understood the grand purposes of our most
God fearing and law-abiding President when
you are more familiar with the profound mill
tary strategy which, as ''COmmander-in-Ch Chief
OF the Army and Navy of the United States"
he Is now displaying; and when you further re-
iASAioSA VIZ "StohiSillHs3 ouCCCSS VIC have HUI
in retaining our misguided countrymen,"
and in conquering our hayward sisters" l
shall be amazed if you continue to believe
it necessary to encourage the loyal" or ere
claim the disloyal." Why encourage the loyal?
Is it possible they need encouragement in
Memphis, where, for nearly year, you have
been inside the federal lines! where every
night tattoo is substituted for Hush my baby
don't you cry, and at rereiUe Hail Columbia
arOuSes the people to a consciousness of the
great security which is afforded to the property
of the loyal people in Memphis and ''all the
country round that (polticaD Jordan" How
can you or g encourage the loyal" when our
matchless President, the late Congress, his sage
counselors, and his peerless military subordin-
ates, have already done and promised all which
wisdom can suggest, which our sacred COnsti-
tuition authorizes, and which the Christian re-
ligion tOlerates and approves? There remains
nothing for US to do, unless it is to obey our
Incompatible President in all his measures to
conquer glorious peace. True, we have
among us croakers and silly,
brainless men-whO are so unwise and unpat-
riotic as to question the wisdom of our indefat-
igable President. If you have any such i'm
Memphis, you should denounce them as in
sympathy with the rebels; You should send
them to their friends down South" or to the
Dry Tortugas, which is understood to be place
where everybody is tortured with thirst for
rifle whisky, and not a drop can be obtained
No good Union man will complain of the con-
duct of the wise men who direct our public
affairs. They should be taught to remember
that Scaadalum m0gndtym was formerly high
crime-it is a most hcinOus Oifcnse nOw-and
nothing saves such cOpper-cOlOred wretcheS
but the Christian charity of our most pious
President.
At your proposed meeting you should so ar
range matters us to secure list of all who fail
to attend or omit to render a suitable apology,
and you should adopt resolutions of the most
..loval' kind Allow me to suggest that the
committee on resolutions be selected from con-
tractors and Otficc-hOlders. l particularly sug-
gest one Cooper, who has been recently APP
pointed assessor for the large, rich, and pOpll-
lous district of West Tennessee. He was orig
inally from New York. True, he was never in
West Tennessee until sent from this city on his
official GRAND, but he no doubt knows by in
tuition the true value of the goods and chattleS,
lands and tenements, &C., &c, of a people he
never knew, and Il country in which he never
lived. But he is ioyal-so much so that /
doubt not he is better fitted for the office than
any one of the native born sons, brothers, or
fathers of the thousands of soldiers which, be-
fore the 22d of last September. West Tennessee
had furnished the Federal army. Let the COM
mite initiate the Loyal Leagues of Balti-
more and resolve that you not only approve all
the present wise and patriotic administration
have done, but that you will sustain and uphold
it in everything it may hereafter do. Let the
committee make an elaborate report accom-
panied with resolutions denOuncing all who
find fault with our most excellent President.
For instance. the last Congress Tin July 1862
passed Il law to cOnfiscate the property of GER
tain rebels. That Congress, though very
wise body, did hot possess as much aggregate
wisdom as our great and good President. In
proof of this we need but refer to the fact that
the Congress aforesaid provided that, under this
In, tria Chnuld nrpcada nVictiOp and fnrfait-
urc, and that guilt should be proven not pre-
sumed Worse still. it offered an amnesty to
repentant rebels; it mercitully gave them sixty
days in which to accept 1t, and provided further
that our most noble President might suspend,
tor period the operation of this law as our
armies advanced southwark, so as to afford all
an opportunity to accept pardon. Worse still,
this law actually applied to none but the rebels.
And it is astonishing that it applied to them
everywhere, north and south; in Springfield,
Illinois, as well as Springfield, Tennessee. But
worse still, it did not wantOnly affect the rights
property of Union men, women and chill
dren, or lunatics, in any section of the country.
That Congress- strange as it may seem, did
not perceive that the way to end the rebellion
and restore atfectiOnate relations between the
two sections was to place the Union men,
women, children, and the insane upon per-
feet footing of equality with the vilest traitors
in the land That Congress belic\ ed that the
crime OF refusing obedience to the usurpation
of. Davis q Co. in Mississippi, Arkansas,
North Carolina. and elsewhere, amid the ter
rors of military despotism, did not merit the
same worse punishment than that they
had pronounced against titled and official trail
tors. That Congress spared the women and
children; also shielded from harm the Union
men who still adhered to the national symbol
of protection What weakness! But Con-
gress had adjourned. What was to be done i?
Thank heaven our sagacious President was
found equal to the occasion. You will per-
ceive that on the first of January last, under
this so-called contiscation law, the slaves of
every rebel in the United States who had not
accepted the amnesty therein provided, were
de jure free But how were we to end this re-
beliOn if the Union men, women and children
i'm the so-caIled Confederate States were left in
undisturbed pOss assion Of all their LEGAL and con-
stitutional rights! If this policy were adopted
the rebels might become angry with these
monuments of Federal mercy" and in that
event the spread monuments aforesaid might
cling more closely to the Federal flag. This
division among the people might cause still
more unhappy state of affairs down in Dixie !:
our friends there might have to bear additional
indignities. AS before remarked, our merciful
and consider,te President was found equal to
the crisis. In Il long conversation with some
;nsnired APOSTLES from the sanity city of Chca-
- place where OnderdOnk and other worldly