Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1867-12-07
Repeal of the Legislation SnIject-
ing the South 10 Military and

A howl of indignation and rage has gont
up from the Republican press, because
President JOHNSON has considered 1t his |
duty to recommend to Congress 1.-THE re
peal of the acts OF Congress which placs |
ten of the Southern States under the dom
inatiOn of military masters" until sucf |
time as the negroes can rule that country |
Whatever may be said to the contrary, tn, |
recommendation is most statesmanlikt
one-one which, if it shall be promptly |
carried out by Congress, will do more to
wards speedy and permanent pacifcation
and the righting up Of the prosperity oftht |
country than almost any other kind ofleg-
islatiOn.
Business is at a stand-still all over tn,
country. There is want of prosperity.
That something is wrong and that some
thing should be done to put that wrong to
rights, is fact SO Enthusiastically plain tha'
even Republican politicians begin to set
and recognize it. What to do. however
they seem not to know. Their malevolence
blinds them. The War desolated the
Southern States-States that before the
War poured into the Golfers of general
prosperity infinitely more than did any
other equal number Of States. 1t was the
duty of craftsmanship to devise and inau-
gurate and prosecute Immediately upon
the termination of the War, such policy
as would quicken the return of the ancient
prosperity of that section of the Union.
This was demanded by an excessively taxed
people of the North. This was demanded
by the general prosperity of the country.
Every national interest demanded it. So
long as the apprehension did not enter the
minds of the Republican leaders that under
President JoHNsoN's policy, which received
the hearty, unhesitating approval of the
Republican State Convention in Ohio in
1865, there was likelihood that the
Republican party would not gain the dom
ination in the then lately insurgent States,
it was not considered obnoxious to repro
baton as a usurpatien; but when it be-
came apparent that there was danger of
the Republican party not securing the mas
terry in the South under such policy, and
that their success lay in making political
co-laborers out of the lately freed, half
civilized Negroes, and when they found
that President JOHNSON would neither be
coaxed nor driven into the support of any
such policy, they mercilessly rained down
upon him execrations as sulphureous as
though they had been specially prepared
in the nethermost pit. where all yillainous
things are said to derive their origin. And
for two years they have labored in Con-
gress and out of Congress, to give the
southern States-its Government and its
future-over to the Negroes. The White
Southern people, under an impending fu-
ture so repeiiant, have had no incentive to
take hold with vigorous clutch to rebuild
the desolated and waste places OF the South,
aud make it vocal with the hum of thriv-
ing industry; and they have not, conse
quently, worked as they would have
worked, had they been recognized as White
men belonging to the great White race,
which has an unchallenged superiority over
all other races. They had upon the request Of
President JOHNSON ratified the abolition
of slavery I; they had repudiated their or
dinances of secession, and obligated them
selves not to pay the confederate debt
President JOHNSON is now accused by the
Republican organs with having in this
transcribed his authority, When he made
the request, these same Republican organs
declared that the Southern people would
not comply with any such request. They
were represented as not yet having been
sufficiently purged of their enmity toward
the Federal Cover nment; but contrary to
their expectation, they did comply with
grs tifying alacrity. This proved unsatis-
factory to the Republican leaders. They
pretended to recognize in this ready COM
pill &C some deep laid scht me to circum-
vent them; and they have counseled and
egislated with view to exasperate the
Southern white people, in order that they
might have a seeming pretext to make
political balance of power for themselves
out of the semi-barbarous Negroes. The
result is, we now have universal depression
in trade and demand, imperious in its
nature, for an adjustment of the Finances
in order that the business of the country
may be riehte1 up. Something must be
done in this direction, and that right spec
dily, too. - = - -
But unless Congress complies with Pres
ident JoHNsoN's recomm endation by re-
pealing their legislation (which places ten
of the Southern States under the domina-
ton of military masters" until the Ne
groes, the, descendants of barbarouss and
cannibal races, and they themselves but
slightly advanced in the scale OF civiliza-
ton, have full mastery, we shall look in
vain for that healthy prosperity which pre-
vailed in the times when the Constitution
was revere ntly looked to under Democrat
ic rule. From the day and the hour in.
which this repeal is perfected will date the
beginning of the general revival of trade