Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1868-10-09
Interesting Correspondence.
MR.. JONES TO NIX. EWING.
FAIRHoLME. NEAR DELAwAR


September 9, 1858.
Ny DEAR SIR: | cannot subscribe to
your last "deliverance," though for Pc
riod of more than thirty years have had
so much faith in your honestyand capacity
that | had come to regard your Judgment
in regard to public affairs as almost in
falible.
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 many of those who
were for the Union are not now with the
Republicans, and have united themselves
with the Democrats. This is true, but
the number is so small as not materially
| to change the character of that party
| The locofocos and the old rebels, with all
their States rights heresies, will have
full control of the party, and the South
ern men, called by the low-bred syeo'
plants of the Democratic party OF the
North high-toned Southern gentle
| men," will in the future, as in the past
be in the lead. think Seymour will be
as'pliant a tool in their hands as your
poor old friend Buchanan was. l 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 a national in
dorsemeut of their present attitude, with
the declaration in the platform that the
reconstruction acts are revolutionary,
illegal aud void" and who can predict
the anarchy, confusion and violence that
will follow 10 the Southern States2 What
| Northern man or other Union man can
| remain there in ssfety2 | regret ex-
ceedingly the sweeping terms in which
you speak of the men who have gone
| South from the Northern States. know
very many of them that are equal In
| character to any men in the country,
| North or South, and they all tell the
same story-that is, that before the
| enactment of the reconstruction mea-
sures, as now, though treated with civil
| ity. they are given to understand that
| they were not wanted there. There were,
they said, executions, but this was the
| general rule. You know that in this re-
| spect the Southern psople have always
been extremely sectional. But they are
as hostile and even more so TO native
born citizens, who we're 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 "scalla-
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 support
the Democrats this fall, because the Sem
ate will hold them in check, is the same
put forth By Seymour in his begging
letter; but you know that this, as to the
situation Of matters in the South, would
I be no check at all The verdict being IN
theirfsvor at the election, there would be
g reign Of terror down there, as IN 1861,
which drove even such men as old John
Bell 10 declare for the Confederate cause
or be assassinaied. General Lee says
they want peace. and viii behave them
selves; and be will pledge himself that
they win, " restored, not only 20 civil
and political rights, but 10 Office, State
and national IL they have everything
their own way they probably will, and
30 they would in 1861. They did not
want var then, for they bad seen snough,
Al least such men As Lee had, 70 see that