The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-01-11
RECONSTRUCTION AND THE PRESIDENCY

OF remorse, in taking as their sole guide OF
the question Of Southern reconstruction the
memorable logic of party exigency. Ths
spirit of calculation with which they compli
cate and intensity the agonies of their South
ern victim, is so atrocious that. in contras
with it, the blacklist fend Of hell might ap
pear almost as fair as an angel of light Such
pitch has their effrontery reached that they
no longer consult even the empty show of de-
cepcy as a cover to their ubiquitous partisan
schemes, the pivot of all of which turns upon
the issue of Southern reconstruction. Ia
other words, convinced that the Northern
majority will repudiate their ticket in the
coming presidential election and neverthe-
less desperately bent on clutching the power
and the spoils of another four years saturna,
liza of corruption and misrule, they have re-
solved to lug the negro vote of the unrecon-
stIucted States into that election for the
| express and sole purpose of having it cast for
their candidates. Inspired by this dominant
idea, a radical member of Congress recently
said in a letter to a newspaper of his district,
"The Republican party, to insure success,
must have the ten unrepresented States recon-
structed and brought back in time to vote for
their candidate next November"
One Of the most signal illustrations of the
fagitious unanimity of Republican leaders in
| this plsn of aggravating the wretched condi-
ton of the South as a measure of heartless
| party expediency, may be seen in the recent
course of Senator Morton, of Indiana. This
senator, as the telegraph informs us, now
urges the passage of bill ''abrogat ng existing
State governments in the rebel States, aad
providing proper governments in lieu there
OF" 1t is not difficult, by collating his re-
marks in SUI port of this proposition with
various features of the political situation, to
] perceive the important bearing which the
measure has upon the vote of the ten unrecon-
structed States in the next presidential cleo
| ton. Its immediate object is to circumvent,
and as far as prudent to supersede, the very
nilitary authority which was established by
Congress to execute the radical plan of re-
construction. The radical leaders fear
that, under such district commanders
as Hancock, Meade and Mcdowell,
acknowledging obedience to such a comman-
der-in-chief as President johnson, the work
of establishing negro supremacy in the States
Of the several districts may be so retarded or
bafied as to deprive the Republican party of
the votes of these States for its presidential
ticket In this view they find the engine
which they had invented as a means of re-
moving distractions, itself proving an OBJ
stTuction to the paramount design of the re-
construction scheme-namely, negro su-
premacy in the South as the basis of radical
supremacy in the entire Union. This is what
the senator means when he says, that to-
day the military authority which they
had set up was obstrueting the proper
operation of the law in some OF these
States, and upholding the existing illegal and
unauthorized governments" and that there
was danger that the work of reconstruction
would fail by the very military power which
they had raised mp to forward it"
1t is no doubt desired, as one of the con-
bngent functions of the State governments
provided in Senator Morton's bill, that in
case the pending reconstruction process
should generally or partially fail to meet the
presidential emergency, they shall contrive to
have the vote of everv State involved in such
failure cast for the Republican candidates.
1t is 10 be noted that Senator Morton does
not pretend that there Was any need in the
South for military rule TO repress either n re-
mote or immediate purpose of rebellion.
His words imply that the sole design of the
military rule established there was TO forward
partisan work of reconstruction. In 1865
his opinion in ard to Southern temper WAS
very similar to that Of General Grant; rs may
be judged from these words of speech made
by him in that year q We cannot expect the
people Of the rebel States have come to love
rs, or that they will come to love Us in few
years. But the great point now to be consid.
cred is the question whether there is any
longer in the Southern States an intention 10
secede from tie Union, and resist the
authority of the government of the United
States, or to establish Southern Confederacy.
say believe that idea has been extinguished
forever" Doubtless the trouble with the
South Low is, in the eyes of Senator Morton,
and perhaps in the eyes eff General Grant,
that the white people Of this section insis.
upon being faithful to the Union without the
condition Of avowed fidelity 20 radical poll
ties, and Of submission to negro supremacy
as the special guarantee Of radical ascen-
dancy.
RIOT N 1FNAs.-General Hancock has received