Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1868-06-16
FUTURE COURSE OF THE SOUTH.

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From the New York Timss.]
There is 8 frsnkness, if not wisdom, in
the declared purpose Of q certain class of
Southern politicians to unds the work Of
reconstruction and disfranchise the ne
gro as soon rs the States regain control
OF their affairs. Thus the Richmond
WHO expresses itself on the subject:
The latest platform of the very party
under whose auspices reconstruction ls
being carried on recognize the States
now in their practical relations with the
Government as having the exclusive
control over suffrage within their Dor
ders. Whenever Congress admits the
Southern States into the Union, their
rights will, even in Radical cOntempla-
ton, be the same. The Chicago plat
form will cover them as II now covers
the others, and they can call COnven-
tons and regulate suffrage to suit them
selves. They will do il, and thus the
same question which the Radicals pre-
tend 20 wish TO settle, and which they
have declared reconstruction should set
tie, will remain open. So their pretend
ed Reconstruction is no finality, no settle
ment, no pscidcstion.
The constitutional right of the South
ern as Of sil other States TO regulate the
question Of suffrage for themselves, so
soon as they again become members Of
the Union, is indisputsble. Funds
mental conditions affirming the nom
eXistence Of this right, or restraining its
exercise within defined limits, will
amount to little, practically, unless they
take the shape Of an amendment to the
National Constitution. For how are
these conditions to be enforced II
State, having been restored to represen-
tation ia Congress, chooses to disregard
them-prOUided only as action be IN con-
JOTHlity NTH the provisions Of It's Ot0H aud
tie Federal COHStittaiOa-hOw is Con-
gress to prevent or 10 punish II ? By
exclusion from COngTess-in other words,
by expulsion from the UniOn-Or by
what other process
The idea OF attempting to hamper the
Southern States by promise that after
they have been re-admitted into the
Onion, they shall never exercise the
right OF depriving the negro of the privi-
lege OF suffrage, under the penalty of
being kicked out Of the Union If they
do SO, would never have been Matched
in any other than Jacobin brain. The
Southern States and some others will
make common cause on this subject;
and the government Of the country will
be restored 10 white men, and the negro
be set back" into the place where he
belongs. Let the whites of South Caro-
lima and Mississippi, for example, send
q negro Senator OF two to Congress, and
there will be an explosion in the North
west that will shatter RadicaIism into
fragments.
No white man in the South, who IL
opposed to negro suffrage and negro
equality, will ever feel that the Constitu-
tjons which are now being fastened like
letters on our States are in reality a su-
pren1e law for him, having the sanction
Of auy divine, or legal or moral Obliga-
ton. They Rre q monstroUs progeny,
the issue Of Force and Fraud, begotten
in sin and brought forth in IniquIty.
There is not the slightest legal or moral
obligation on any white man except
those who helped In the unholy and
dirty work, to obey them and they will
be obeyed only until they can be uncere-
uooniousIy swept out of the way, with
all the accursed laws that are already
being prepared to be spawned under
them.
Every principle which gives to Gov
ernments their authority and make the
laws enacted by the majority the acts,
In law, OF all, has been violated In max
ing these monuments Of the crime and
folly Of faction, and Imposing them upon
the people against whose consent they
we're made. Pretending to apply in
prac.ice the Principles announced in the
Declaration OF Independence, they are
all f-eated with sovereign contempt in
II that Infamous legislation under which
hese abon nations have come into
fraudulent existens'
Here are ten pOlitioal communities {!