Daily union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1865-1866, 1866-01-03
Union and American.
THE SOUTHERN PEOPLE
AND THE PRESIDENT.
letter from General JnO. l.. It.
Sneed.


SoMERvILLE, Tenn, Dec. u, 1866.
To Messrs. t. B. Mcdowell, John H Bills
r. S. Hardy, Committee
GENTLEMEN: | had the honor to receiv,
ON Yesterday, your note of the 23d of No
vember. inviting me TO be present and I,
address a mass meeting of the citizens 0
Hardeman county, on the first Monday o
the present month. 1t would have afforded
me great pleasure to have met the people o
HardemaI on that occasion, had | received
your invitation in time.
In the present ordeal Of transition through
which the people of the South are passing
from state of military rule to that of Ii.
berty and equality, it is scarcely to be ex.
pected that all men will think alike as tc
| every measure adopted in the stupendous
work of rehabilitation" But there is one
| salient feature in this great drama, about
which all minds must be agreed, and that is
that Andrew JohnseA the remarkable nan
who now, under God, wields the destinies Of
the American people, has thus far shown
! that he, at least, comprehends the duties OF
the present hour; that, just alike to the
North and to the South, he knows how to
restore fraternity to this great people, and
| that having inaugurated a policy pleasing
to Almighty God, grateful to humanity, and
for which "the nations will praise him when
he is dead" he has the will, the courage and
the craftsmanship, to pursue and to
| consummate it. Like the good mariner,
who knoweth well the seas upon which
he cruises he keeps his eye upon the
compass and the chart, resolved if
the good ship goes down again it shall
not be for the want of faithful pilotage. His
predecessor, but few days before his death,
| had pledged the honor of the government to
the Southern people, that if they would lay
| down their arms and quietly submit to the
| national authority, they should be restored
to their ancient status in the Union, shorn
of no right they claimed except those which
had been staked upon the arbitrament of
| the sword-the right as States to secede from
the Union-and the right of property in
slaves. Andrew johnson, within few brief
months has done much toward the redemp-
ton of this promise After our gallant
armies had gracefully yielded a contest
which for four years they had nobly and
crandly maintained against every conceiv-
able phase of adverse circumstances, he
found our people oppressed by military rule
troops CHARTERED in their houses without
their consent civil law subverted-t the
courts of Justice closed, and absolute anarchy
prevailing-modified alone by the uncertain
rule of military caprice. He set about the
TASK at once OF correcting this great evil.
The task was stupendous indeed, but he has
shown himself equal to it, Within that brief
period he has disbanded more than eight
hundred thousand troops, he has re-opened
the courts of Justice in the South, he has re-
Il 10, ho. nIoiY, ,aI
n general amnesty to Southern soldiers,
and TO the masses of the Southern people
thousands of whom, but for this splendid
exhibition of heroic courage and humanity
in him, would have been brought to the
block to appease the vindictive passions OF
the aOn-combdtdat radicals OF the North. lie
found the people of the South, almost to
man, disposed to acquiesce quietly in the for
tunes of war, admitting that the negro was
no longer in bondage-and without the
slightest disposition to re-enslave HIM. But
he found on the other hand herd of pesti-
lent politicians at the North-whO were not
OF the fighting element of that people
whose thirty years crusade against the peo-
pie of the South and against the happiness
of the negro himself, had plunged the coun-
try into the vortex from which it is just re-
covering-and upon whose guilty heads will
rest eternally the blood and the infamy of
this fratricidal war-ere yet the noble dead
were buried who had fallen under their re-
spective banners for the cause they believed
to be Just he found these mischievous peo-
pie filling another mighty cauldron of ma
tionaI discomfort in clamoring for the abso-
lutte social and political equality of the
Anglo-Saxon and the African races IN the
Southern States. Though they had never
vet vouchsafed to the colored race the I'M
conditional right of suffrage in their own
States, they, nevertheless, demanded of the
President that he at once proclaim to the
coloxed race the right of suffrage in the
Southern States, to which he firmly respond
ed that this was a matter of local and NUM-
cipal regulation, left by the Constitution with
the States themselves, with which he, as the
national executive, had nothing to do.
He found the people bereft, as the Incl
dent of war. of the inestimable privilege of
the writ of habeas corpus He is gradually
restoring that right, which is the most valu-
able and consecrated of all the guarantees
of popular liberty in State. He found in
one or two of the States of the South, that
the mass Of the people to whom he had
proclaimed an absolute pardon for past po
iitical offences, had been deprived of all
semblance of a Republican form of govern
ment and bereft of the most cherished rights
of citizenship without the form Of law. He
reminds Congress in his first message TO that
body. that when one man or an oligarchy
has usurpcd the control of a State govern
ment. it is their sworn duty, under the
Constitution. to guarantee. to the people of
such State a Republican form of govern
ment. He has restored the right of free
speech to the people, and the right of the
people peaceably to assemble and petition
the government for redress of grievances.
And last, but not least, of the noble acts
by which the President has avouched his
fealty to the Constitution of his fathers, he
has taken off the muzzle from the public
press, which, for four long years has been
afraid to speak the truth.
And who can estimate the value of free,
bold and virtuous public press as a conserva-
tor of popular liberty in State? The peo-
pie of this country, and of all countries,
have been in the habit of looking to
it-and leaning upon it-as the surest
bulwark of their freedom. An honest and
dignified press that speaks unhonied truth
with an honest purpose-that does not pros
titute itself as a vile conduct of personal
spite and coarse balderdash-that does not
draggle its high trust of material and intel
lectual progress by pandering to the low
purposes of the demagogue, is absolutely
certain to achieve for itselfa dignity, and an
in the State, which mother instru-
mentality can countervail. When it once
gets hold of the public heart, its ipsi dirt
becomes the common law of social and poll
teal life 1t becomes at once a citadel of
public virtue, and a conservator Of private I
morals. 1t is a system of knight-errantry,
with rather more Of the Bayard than the
Quixote about it,-which, although it is
sometimes found belaboring a Windmill in
the shape Of some impracticable idea, or
plucking a Gagged lion by the beard, yet its |
great heart is in the right place, and it |
it is always industriously casting about |
it. to solve to the popular apprehension |
some rerdta q,,cstio of social or political econ
omy-to expose some public evil, or to |
some useful enterprise. 1t is a
great labor-saving machine, which does |
much of the public's thinking. IT'S COM
mon schoolmaster "abroad in the land"
whose daily mission it is, to instruct to en- |
tighten, to elevate, and to chasten. IT'S the |
laboratory, at which all our great men are |
made. They may not feel flattered by the |
but il is nevertheless true. A man |
may have merit and virtues by which man
kind might be profted, but in this busy. |
bustling selfish world, he is like a gem in |
the caverns of the sea-his power is rarely |
felt, his influence unrecognized until the |
press has hcralded his merits to the world. |