Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1868-10-28
MIR. ADAMS AT THE SOUTH.
What He saw end What He Thinks
Of II.

1
oft.
On his return last week, John Quincy
Adams addressed an impromptu meeting
at the Place of his residence. He said
Mr.. PRESIDENT, MY FRIENDS AMI
NEIGHBoRs You must not expect me to
make speech, for l have none to make
jim fact 1 have got none made-but as
l look around me and see many friendly
and familiar faces, it occurs to me that
after all | should like to say few words
in an .off-hand and friendly way as one
neighbor talks to another about the ex-
perience have had in the course of the
last two or three weeks. As you all
know | have made little trip to the
South during that time. wished to see
what a reconstructed State was, and
went to South Carolina for that purpose.
I have come back with this conviction,
though | do not know how the other
conservative citizens of the Union may
feel about it, never intend to stop, to re-
lax for one moment in the heartiest, most
earnest and most honest efforts l can
make to remove all such blessings" as
reconstruction from the nscks Of every
one of my fellow-citizens. Loud ap-
pIause.1 The issue in this campaign to
me is simply this and nothing more. Re-
construction, as you know, is the Radical
Constitution. 1t is the only Constitution
now in ten States of the Uniop. and what
is it ? II issimpiy this-the rule of the
mility and nothing else. In order that
it may not jar too much upon the nerves
Of republican people to see eight mill
lions of their fellOw-citizens held down
by the bayonet, they have brought in
great mass Of tire or four millions of
poor, ignorant, degraded black men, and
set them up in row, as it were, across
the Southern States, and because they
think you cannot see the bayonet behind
them, they say, "That is republican
form of government" How republican =?
What is this republican form of govern
ment? Why, look at the condition Of
those States. Suppose that almost all
the voters in this Commonwealth should
suddenly be deprived Of the franchise and
in their place it was bestowed upon set
Of men who were entirely ignorant of the
value and responsibility of the voting
power, who knew nothing about any of
the principles in regard to which they
were voting. Suppose such class of
men were to be put over you, of course
you would not like it; you would feel
uncomfortable and disagree, and you
would not suffer their rule if you could
help it. Yet this is precisely the condi-
ton in which South Carolina is to-day.
She is governed by set Of men who, if
the people were left to themselves, would
have no more chance Of holding the offices
of your government they now hold than
l should of being elected King of Great
Britain in place Of Queen Victoria, if l
were to go to England tomorrow.
I Laughter. And these officials having
no hold upon the esteem of the people, as
they call them down there in their ex-
pressive, though slightly inelegant Ian
guage, "scalawag" and carpet baggers'
cannot command any Of their respect
and confidence. The CONSCIENCE of this
is that they have to be supported in their
places by the bayonets of United States
soldiers. And as there are not United
States soldiers enough at the South to
keep the people entirely "contented,'
nor enough to make the government
thoroughly Democratic" so every day
or two they are calling for more soldiers
in order to support these thoroughly
Democratic" and Republican" govern
ments, and that is reconstruction Ny
Southern Democratic friends down there
greeted me in way which l shall never
forget to my dying day. The
kindness, the warmth, the consid-
Grafton, the order which they showed
in welcoming any Northerner especially
from Massachusetts, who would so down
there and say to them a kind worldwide
would not treat them like boys, and call
them Rebels, traitors, miserable rascals
or villains-went to my heart. They
asked me to say to my fellow-citizens at
the North that they fought you in the
war; they believed that they were right;
that they fought you as hard as they
could and when the war was done that
they frankly abandoned that they had
fought for. They said that we had
whipped them we had conqured what
we demanded during the war, and they
were ready to give it up. They would
fight no longer, and all they asked was
friendship and kindness. What they
desired from us at the North was
mercy, the hand of kindness, good fellow
ship and brotherly love. Loud applause
They want no more contest, no more ill
blood they merely want to shake hands,
saying We fought, and now the fight is
done let us be friends. That is the feel
ing of the mass of the whole people l met
at the South. saw no unkindness, no
sort of feeling indicating unkindness
towards any of the people at the
North That they may be treated in
decency and kindness they do ask, and
that is what pray of every one of you
to labor for. Applause 1t is the
thing, it seems to me, that we need
here at the North as much as they do at
the South. All that they ask, and all
that the Democratic party at the North
seek to accomplish is that we may be
allowed to come together once more in
peace and amity; that this incubus of re-
construction may be taken off the people /;
that these soldiers may be taken away
from between us, and that we-all Of us
once more may feel-North as we'll as
South, white man as we'll as black man
the benefits Of q union under the old
system of government.