Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1868-10-06
0blllIo(:Jl bio ID Statesman, STATE ii 81 /; tan.
Interesting correspondence.
LETTER from the Hon. +. C. Jones,
of Delaware, Ohio. 10 1lle Hon.
n hos. Ewing, and MIR. Ewiue's
Reply. t r-t"-. fH'a-..r lar..
n. MR.. JONES TO MR.. EWING.
FAIRHoLME, NEAR DELAWARE,
September 9, 1868.


MR.. JONES TO MR.. EWING.
FAIRHoLME, NEAR DELAWARE, ! T'
; ........, September 8, 1868. ..s
My Dear Sri cannot subscribe to
your last 4" deliverance," though for
period of more than thirty years have
had so much faith in your honesty and
capacity that / had come to regard your
Judgment in regard to public affairs as
almost infallible. ~ i7-'i.i.li 800 5sh
Admitting all you claim in regard to
the Republicans, it seems to me very
clear that it is still safer to trust the
party that was in authority and carried
the country safe through the war, than
to put those in power who fought
against the country, or who refused to
cooperate with the party OF the Union.
/ know it may be said that now many
of those who were for the Union are
not now with the Republicans, and have
united themselves with the Dem
ocrats. This is true, but the num-
Der is so small as-not mater
tally to change ths character of that par
ty. The old locofoeos and the old reb
els, with all their States rights heresies,
will have full control of the party, and
the Southern men, called by the low
bred sy ycophants of the Democratic party
in the North "high;toned Southern gen.
tlemen,'' will in the future as in the past,
be in the lead. / think Seymour will
be as plant tool in their hands as your
poor old friend Buchanan was. re-
member you told me it was his want of
courage that induced him to allow Floyd
and his gang to control him. Let these
desperate men once have national in
dorsement of their present attitude,
with the declaration in the platform that
the reconstruction acts are revolution
ary, illegal and void" and who can
predict the anarchy, confusion and vio-
lence that, will follow in the Southern
States What Northern man, or other
Union man can remain there in safety
| regret exceedingly the sweeping terms
/ in. which you speak of the men who
have sa gone ID, South from the
Northern States. 1 know very
many of ! them that are equal
| in character to any men in the corntry,
North or South, and they all tell the
same story-that is, that before the
enactment of the reconstruction meas
l,ires, as now, though treated with
civility, they are giveenn'to understand
that they were not wanted there. There
were, they said, exceptions, but this was
the general rule. You know thatin this
respect the Southern people have always
been extremely sectional. But they are
as hostile and even more so to native
born citizens, who were opposed to them
during the war or are opposed to them
now. Their classification is this-those
who came there during or since the war,
"carpet-baggers, those who were there
from the North before the war, "scala-
wags"-and those who were born there
and act with the Republicans, like Judge
Hill or Governor Brown, of Georgia, are
called white niggers. .....
Your argument that we should sup
port the Democrats this fall, because the
Senate will hold them in check, is the
SAM. put forth by Seymour in his beg
ging letter; but you know that this, as
to the situation of matters in the South,
would be no check at all. The verdict
being in their favor at the election, there
would be reign of terror down there,
as in 1861, which drove even such men
as old John Bell to declare for the Con-
federate cause, or be assassinated. Gen
eral Lee says they want peace and will
behave themselves. And he will pledge
| himself that they will. if restored not
only to civil and political rights, but to
Office, State and national. If they have
everything their own way they probably
will, and so they would in 1861. They
did not want war then, for they had seen
Eenough, at least such men as Lee had, to
see that they would be whipped. But
Lee is not a good judge of Southern
opinion; he did not believe there would
be secession in 1861, and was opposed
to it, still he went "with his section,"
as he will again, whenever it decides
upon violence. --- -.s SAN
You say that at the end of two years,
if the Democrats don't prove themselves
worthy, we can put them out. Oh my
dear sir, if the elections were all sub
ject to be controlled by you, or such
men as you, this might do; but unfor-
tuhately we know that they are not, and
that in fact good men have no more in
fuence than bad ones. The rebels,
and their old allies, the Locofocos of the
North, once in power, they may retain
it until all We gained by the war is
thrown away. The Republican MAORI
ity in Congress has been too large, and
in consequence of this, and the folly of
the President, extreme and unwise meas
ures have been adopted. But in any
event there will not be such majority
in the next Congress; and with man
of the firmness and will of General
Grant, and his well-known generosity,
we may expect with great confidence a
wise and iudicious administration of af-
fairs. After all, what great evil can re-
suit from the reconstruction acts They
constitute an awkward and dangerous
method of recovery from the disorganiz-
alton of civil government caused by the
rebellion. The evil will be but tempo
rary. Look at Georgia, where the white
people have acted like men of SENSE
Have we not here, even under these
acts, a substantial and fair government
established? The negroes are to vote.
Well, suppose they are Is it right
that so large part of the population
should be counted in representation and
yet have no actual representation 3
Neither voting themselves nor others for
them, as in the case of women and chill
dren?
There ought to be a restoration to civil
and political rights; but am not willing
to say, as the rebel Generals claimed,
and as seemed to be conceded at the New
York Convention, that they were "as
good as any of the men they fought
| anninSt Z, / am not willing tins to for.