The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1868-09-30
Riot. aud uscou..ruo,lon !. che sou,i..

Riots aud Reconstruction 10 tho South.
Every lay we have to chronicle some decd
OF violence and bloodshed in the Sonss ayising
from the disturbed state of the public nina
upon the subject Of politics At one time the
State Of Tennessee is in terrible commotion,
and the Ku Klux assassinations there are, 40
cording to the Brownlow papers and proclama-
tions, fearful in number and attended with
savage atrOcity. Then the soil of Arkansas
becomes blood-stained with daily and nightly
negro procession riots, attended with san
culinary results, and, finally, for the present at
least, comes the Camilla tragedy, with its
accompanying horrors and widespread excite
ment and alarm.
Naturally enough each party ascribes the
origin of these turbulent proceedings to the
other. Each can find witnesses to swear the
other was to blame, and each story is believed
to be true or false according to the predilec-
tons of those who listen to one or the other.
The truth is, these outrages arise from natural
causes. They are to be attributed to the sys-
TEN of reconstruction which the republican
party insist on forcing upon the people of the
South against their will and consent and, in
measure, both parties are to blame-one for the
manner in which the obnoxious laws are
attempted to be enforced and the other for
the mode adopted to resist them. It is a
struggle on the part of the democrats to
possess power and on the part of the republi-
cans to retain it. 1t is contest between the
old Southern rebel democracy who, with all
their force of character, self-relance and
audacity, are striving against the republicans
of the North, who, on their side, with their
usual INSCRIPTIONS shrewdness and cunning,
desire to establish the domination of the black
race and its recognition upon standard OF
equality or rather of supremacy in every re-
spect over the white in the South Of course
this utter destruction of the whole social and
political relations of the Southern white people
cannot be tolerated by the masses of the
whites neither in the South nor in the North,
for any length of time, even If it should be Alb
soutely permitted for day 1t is, briefly,
race between both parties as to who shall win
stand as good chance as the republicans.
The former are well understood to mean what
they say and intend to keep the promises they
make to the blacks. The republicans are fast
losing whatever hold they had upon the aafec-
tons of the cOlOred people by repeated acts Of
fraud and deception. The democrats are &C
lively at work getting up conventions, public
meetings, mingling on terms of political fair
ness with the blacks and making them under
stand who their true friends are. On the other
hand, the republicans are only making head
way with the blacks by endeavOring to instl
into their minds fear that their former mas
ters intend to reduce them again to state Of
bondage and by making them believe they
mean to confer upon them every prerogative
enjoyed by the whites-to sit in Congress, In
State Legislatures and the like-while they tell
altogether different story at the radical hust-
ings in the North in those radical States which
have pronounced against negro suffrage and
negro equality. So far as the carpet baggers
are concerned, it is game of doube-shuf all
around. They are shutting with Sambo in the
cabins at the South and shutting with the anti
negro equality republicans in the North. But
in the end we do not believe the Sambo shuttle
will win. 1t is too broad-faced cheat and
humbug, Of which the sensible blacks are not
likely to be made the permanent victims.
Hence, with the Southerners successful in So
curing the vote of the black population, their
triumph in every Southern State is assured,
and with that influence they will rally the old
democratic party all over the country, obtain
a restoration to that half century of power
which they unwisey surrendered in 1860, and
the nation will again have trial for another
half century of the regular old-fashioned
Southern democratic rule.
We do not believe the Southerners will
ever undertake again to break down
the government. They have had enough Of
that But they will start anew upon the
plan Of government which, with but one or
two exceptions, they knew how to carry ON 80
well for so long q time, and which, now that
slavery is forever extinct, was just about as
good q government as the country ever had.
SO placing these Southern riots to the account
of the efforts of the republicans to establish An
atrocious system of reconstruction in the
South, we see in them, while holding both par
ties more OF less responsible for the outrages
committed, only the natural result of a strug-
gle between two political parties--the one 10
retain, the other to possess power, with the
negro vote as the prize to the victors.
The south American Earthquakes.