The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-07-10
THE NEW YORK PRESS.
EDnoRlAs OPINIONS or THE LEADING JOURNALS
Upon UuRRKNr TOPics-CoMPILED KvKRH
DAY FOR rHE EVENING TELEGRAPH.


vsrospeot OF a Reign Of Terror in the
sOuth-BOw to stop IL.
PSon ne Herald.
The news of the bloody collision on Satur-
day last at Franklin, Tennessee, between a
Ioyal League of black radicals and hostile
gathering of so-called conservatives, will have
surprised no one possessed OF any knowledge
of the turbulence and fighting propensities
which prevail among the leading politicians
and their followers on both sides throughout
the State. Parson Brownow and his radical
State Government, in their stringent mea-
sures of Rebel disfranchisement, Rebel disa-
bilities and punishments for Rebel ofienses, in
addition to negro suffrage, and from their
ferocious electioneering system against the
so-oalled conservatives, as ''the blood-hounds
of JEFF. Davis" and "the dregs of the Rebel
lion" etc., have aroused corresponding mea-
sure of hatred, wrath, and ferOcity in the anti
BrOwnlOw opposition party. The State cleo
ti0n. which viii embrace q Governor, Legis-
lature, and members OF Congress-, does not
come of till August, and with five or six weeks
more of agitation aud tanning of these COM
bustibles, there is prospect that election day
in Tennessee will be day of terror, blood
shed, and confusion throughout the State.
Intelligent men, detailed from this office,
who have recently canvassed the Southern
States for information touching their material,
social, and political situation, report that Ten
nessee to-day is by far in the most disorderly,
confused, and turbulent condition of any of the
States concerned in the rebellion; and that
Tennessee and Kentucky, of all the late slave
States, are most in need of Congressional re-
construction from top to bottom. The one is
so excessively radical in its State administra-
tien as to call for the Intervention OF Congress-;
and the other is so excessively State rights as
to be nothing better than chip of the old
block Of the Southern COniederacy.
The duty therefore devolving upon Con-
gress, of guaranteeing to each State a repub-
licsn form of government" would seem to
demand some positive legislation in behalf of
Tennessee and Kentucky; and, outside of their
borders, we dare say there will be but little
complaint should Congress dOvetail them in
the new bill of Southern reconstruction.
Meantime, it will be perceived, from an inAam-
matory Jacobin speech by negro doctor of
divinity, the Rev. Lewis Lindsay, at Mudwall,
in Virginia, that the idea of enforcing social
equality is getting into the heads of the South
ern blacks. Their representatives on the
stump have recently, in various places South,
been harping on the string of confscation and
free farms; but in striking that bolder note of
enforcing negro social equality, the Rev.
Lewis Lindsay is touching more emphatically
all these manifestations from the Southern
blacks, and in the opposing spirit of the
whites, we can see only, it left to themselves,
the gathering elements of a reign of terror
and war of races, and war of extermina-
tion, too, ia the South.
How is this to be prevented Z Looking at
the prosecutions of the negroes in the unre-
constructed State of Kentucky, and at the
prescriptions and prosecutions against Rebels
in the only half reconstructed State of Ten
nessee, we think the ten excluded States have
reason to be thankful chat they are under the
powerful protection of Congress and the army
of the United States, and absolutely under
their control. 1t is only by the military
governments, too, of the five Southern dis
tricts, that the States embraced therein can be
saved from that conflict of races which is now
foreshadOwed in the political organizations of
their whites and blacks against each other.
The military commanders over these districts,
with their ample discretion and means for
enforcing law and order, will be able to
maintain the peace in suppressing all dis
turbers, whites or blacks, until the people of
both races, in every State concerned, are
brought to that degHe of harmony which will
justify the full resto4aton Of their State au-
thorities.
1t is in this view of this important subject
of Southern reconstruction that we commend
to the Southern people the safety and the
securities they now have, and which they will
for some time yet possess, against conflict Of
races and reign Of terror in being under the
direct guardianship of Congress, a military
commander, and national army. We have
only to compare the law and order prevailing
in Georgia with the disorder, violence, and
terrorism prevailing in Tennessee, to under
stand the advantages of a military provisional
government like that of General Pope over a
too hastily and crudely reconstructed State
government like that of Parson Brownlow.