Des Arc weekly citizen., 1867-12-21

ciety have been broken up by civil war Industry must be reorganized, justice re-established, public credit maintain ed, and order brought out ofconfusion To accomplish these ends would require all the wisdom and virtue of the greai men who formed our institutions orig. inally. I confidently believe that theil descendants will be equal to the ardu. ous task before them; but it is worse than madness to expect that negroes will do it for us. Certainly we ought not to ask their assistance until we des. pair of our own competency. The great difference between the two races in physical mental and moral charac. teristics will prevent an amalgamation or fusion of them together in one ho. mogehcous mass. If the inferior ob. tains ascendancy over the other, it will govern with reference only to its own interests for it will recognize no com. mon interest, and create such a tyran. ny as this continent has never yet wit. messed. Already negroes are fnflu. enced by promises of confiscstion and plunder. They are taught to regard as an enemy every white man who has any respect for the rights of his own race. If this continues, it must become worse and worse, until all order will be subverted, all industry cease, and the fertile fields of the South grow ur ineo wilderness. Of all the dangers which our nation has yet encountered none are equal to those which must re. suit from the success of the effort now making to Africanize half our country
 THE COST.
 I would not put considerations oi money in competition with justice and right; but the expenses incident to reconstruction under the system adopt ed by Congress aggravate what I re. gard as the intrinsic wrongs of the measure itself. It has cost uncounted millions already, and, if persisted in will add largely to the weight of taxa tion, already too oppressive to be borne without just complaint, and may finally reduce the treasury of the na. tion to condition of bankruptcy.
 We may not delude ourselves. IL will require a strong standing army, and probably more than two hundred millions of dollars per annum, to main- tain the supremacy of the negro gov ernments after they are established. The sum thus thrown away would, if properly used, form a sinking fund large enough to pay the whole nation- al debt in less than fifteen years. It is vain to hope that negroes will main- tain their ascendancy themselves. Without the military power, they are wholly incapable of holding in subjec- tion the white people of the South.
 l submit to the judgment of Congress whether the public credit may not be injuriously affected by system of measures like this. With our debt, and the vast private interests which are complicated with it, we cannot be too cautious of a policy which might, by possibility, impair the confidence of the world in our government. That confidence can only be retained by carefully intoxicating the principles of justice and honor on the popular mind, and by the most scrupulous fidelity to all our engagements of every sort. Any serious breach of organic law, persisted in for considerable time, cannot but create fear for the stabili- ty of our institutions. Habitual viola ton of prescribed rules which we bind ourselves to observe, must demoralize the people. Our only standard of civil duty being set at naught, the sheet- anchor of our political morality is lost public conscience sways from its moor ings, and yields to every impulse of passion and interest. If we repudiate the Constitu tion, we will not be expec- ted to care much for mere pecuniary obligations.
 THE PRESENTATIONS OF THE PUBLIC
 CREDIT.
 The violation of such pledge as we made on the 22d of July, 1861, will as- suredly diminish the market value of our other promises. Besides, if we now acknowledge that the national debt was created, not to hold States in the Union, as taxpayers were led to suppose, but to expel them from it, and hand them over to be governed by negroes, the moral duty to pay it may seem much less clear. Isay it MAY seem so for do not admit that it, or any other argument in favor ofrepudiation, can be entertained as sound but its in fiuences on some classes of minds may we'll be apprehended. The financial honor of great commercial nation, largely indebted, and with a republi- can form of government administered by agents of popular choice, is a. thing of such delicate texture, and the des- truction of it would be followed by such unspeakable calamity, that every true patriot must desire to avoid what ever might expose it to the slightest danger. The great interest of the coun- try require immediate relief from these enactmcnts.
 BUSINESS IN THE SOUTH IS rARALYzED by sense of general insecurity, by the ter TOT of confiscation, and the dread of negro supremacy Southern trade, from which the North would have derived so great a profit under government of law, still languishes. and can never be revived while it can be fet- tered by the arbitrary power which makes all its operations unsafe. That rich country the richest in natural resources the world ever saw-is worse than lost if it be not soon placed under the protection of . free consti- tuition. Instead of being. as it ought to be, a source of wealth and power, it will become an intolerable burden upon the rest of the na- tion.
 rHE LATE ELECTIONS.
 Another reason for retracing our steps will doubtless be seen by Congress iu the late manifestations of public opinion on this sub ject. We livein & country where popular will always forces obedience to itself sooner or later. It is vain to think of opposing it with anything short of legal authority backed by overwhelming force. It cannot have escaped your attention that from the day on which Congress fairly and formally presented the proposition to govern the Southern States by military force, with view to the ultimate establishment of negro supremacy, every ex- pression of general sentiment has been more or less adverse to it.
 The affection of this generation cannot be detached from the institutions of their ances- tors. Their determination to preserve the inheritance of free government in their own hands, and transmit it undivided and unim- paired to their own posteri'y, is too strong to be successfully opposed. Every weaker pas sinn will disannenr hafnre inc I.v., of lihorIr