Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1868-01-17
GRANT AS DICTATOR.
What Congress Now Proposes
TO DO with the South.

manders aud appoint others in their
stead. The purpose of the bill is to
place the governments of those States IN
his hands, without any restriction what
s,ever, to the end that the negro party
there may cast the electoral votes of the
South for the Jacobin candidate for
President.
1t is not possible to speak of the bill
in terms more denunciatory than MS vii
lainous character deserves; AMI it is not
possible for any citizen of this country,
whose mind is not beclouded by partisan
hatreds and interests, to believe that the
men who framed it did not know that
they were engaged in an inexpressibly
wicked and infamous work They are
so consumed by lust of power that they
have deliberately conspired to concoct
one Of the most cruel, tyrennical, and
oppressive measures ever devised in this
or any other country for the punishment
and degradation of millions of men. The
proposition is to strike down al law in
the Southern States, and invest General
Grant with powers more absolute than
any monarch in any civilized country
will dare to claim. Napoleon could not
reign in France q single day were he to
assert that be possessed such authority
as the bill proposes to bestow on General
Grant.
One of the ablest and most widely
circulated papers in the Republican
party, the New York Times, is driven to
the confession that it is mot easy to
sneak with patience Of the follies and
A. 1f h.
of reconstruction" If such was the fact
before the passage of the bill so amend
ing the reconstruction acts as to permit
a majority of the persons voting on the
things called constitutions to suffice for
their ratifcati instead of majority
of the registered voters, what shall be
said of the schemes now presented for
amending the military bills
1t may be urged that Messrs Boutwell,,
Bingham, Farnswortb, Hubbard, Bea-
man and Paine are honorable men, and
would not lend themselves to such work
as we have alleged his last proposed re-
construction monstrosity to be. Some
of them bear very good regulations for
honesty, and it is to be hoped that they
are deserved. The fact, however, is
patent that the bill is the embodiment Of
political prostitution, and that none but
a fool would honestly attempt its justifi-
| cation. If Beecher should engage in
forgery, and Greeley in arson, and Bout.
we'll in an attempt to swindle an insu-
rance company by burning what was in
| sured for more than its market value, and
| Tilton in an attempt to levy blackmail,
and Patton should join whisky-rng to
defraud the revenue, the estimation in
which they were held as men of probity
| and Christians would not change the
fact of their guilt.
It is as clear that the military bills
and this proposed supplement are crimes
| of beinous magnitude as that arson, and
| forgery, and conspiracies to steal from
| the Government are such crimes. They
propose to strike down the supreme law
of the land, guarding the most sacred
rights of every person in the country,
and to establish lynch law in its stead.
The decision of the Supreme Court in
the case of the alleged Indiana conspira-
tors did plainly declare military govern
ment in this country in time Of peace to
be lynch law. 1t is the law of force, in
defiance of the Constitution and of every
principle of free and enlightened govern
| ment
We charge that every member of Cen
press voting for those bills knew this
Every member advocating the bill now
up to extnguish the State governments
knows that it is proposition to establish
lynch law in ten States of the Union
and over ten millions Of American citi-
zens. Every member of Congress knows
that he cannot vote for that bill without
committing perjury. This, then, is the
question: If no man in the country,
however exalted his reputation and
position, but would be held in detesta-
ton as criminal we're he known to
have perpetrated fragrant crime against
the person or rights of an individual,
shall not like Indignation he mani
tested against legislators who trample on
their oaths Of Office to commit crimes
more enormous and revolving than a
single individual can execute?
AS for General Grant, If be has any
regard for his own reputation, or any
hone that he may reach the Presidency,
he should at once inform the perjured
miscreants who are pushing forward this
latest scheme to subject white men to
degraded and besotted negroes, and per-
petuate Jacobin proAigacy and mlsrule,
that he will have no lot or part in the
infamy. Were his fame as warrior as
great as that of the first Napoleon, and
as a patriot as enviable and worldwide
as that of Washington, it would be in
6nitely too small to cover the immortal
ity of shame which his voluntary parti-
cipancy in the cruelty, and cowsrdice,
and despotism proposed in the bill would
entail upon him. He has already black
ened his reputation by jabbling with
reconstruction in behalf of what was
worst and meanest in it, and to support
men in brutal employment of power; and
his effort should be 70 redeem what he
has lost in this direction.
MR. McMAsrERs, of the New York
Freemdn's Journal, thus notices Mr.:
Eugene Casserly, who has been elected
bv the California Legislature to the Uni-
ted States Senate to succeed Mr.. Conness:
"Mr. Casserly will be remembered by
many Of the very oldest subscribers OF
the Freeman s JourRal-before 1t came
into our hands. Some twenty-five to
;weniy-four years ago, in the heat OF the
Native Ansrican fanaticism, Mr..
Casserly's pungeut and scholarly pen did
much to give the Freeman Journal it's
6rst extensive circulation. be was
among the early emigrants to San Fran
cisco, and his position at the bar, IN that
young State, was what his thorough and
excellsnt training. along with his own
6ne mind aud excellent character, gave
Nomise Of"
The French people delight in big sto-
=. nhn,f Inrd Rrnnrhar A Cannes