The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-12-04
SPIRIT OF THH PRESS.
Editorial Opinions of tho Lending Journals
Upon Cdrrcnt TOpics-Compiled Every
Dav for the Evening Telegraph.
GOING BACK IN RECONSTRUCTION


other quarters of desire or intention on the
part of a certain section of jealous Republi-
cans this winter to take severe measures with
regard to Georgian short, to put her COM
pletey back under military rule, by way of
furnishing her for the crimes, disorders, and
general spirit of disobedience to the law by
which she is afflicted. Georgia, as our readers
may remember, is neither in nor out of the
Union. Indeed, her condition is perhaps the
most singular in which any community ever
found itself. She fulfilled all the conditions
of admission which Congress prescribed by an
act passed for the purpose, June 25, 1868;
General Meade officially certified the fulfil
ment of some of these conditions; the fulfil
ment of the remaining one-the ratification
of the fifteenth constitutional amendment
was duly proclaimed by the President, and the
Georgia Representatives were therefore duly
admitted to the House. 1t only remained to
admit her Senators, but they were refused ad-
mission because, in the interval, the Legisla-
ture had expelled it's colored members, its
right to be the sole judge of the qualifications
of it's members having been formally acknow-
lodged in telegraphic despatch to General
Meade signed by the members both of the Ju-
dietary and Reconstruction Committees of the
House. The Senate, therefore, deliberately
disregarded the act of June 20, and refused to
admit the Georgia Senators on the conditions
therein prescribed, and by mere resolution
prescribed OJQ6r anu lreSu one OF
which was that the Legislature should lay
aside its claim to judge in all cases of the
qualifications Of its members. No reasoning
in support of this extraordinary performance
was ever produced. MIR. Ste wart, of Nevada,
wrote the majority report of the Judiciary
Committee, but nobody but himself would
sign it, which was not surprising, as it was
simply piece of wild defamation. Messrs
Conkling and Frelinghuysen, however, adj
N hot fha
Georgia Senators ought not to be readmitted,
taking their stand apparently on the discre-
tionary power of the Senate in Judging of the
qualifications of its members, while Mr.
Trumbull made maj ajority report containing
an argument on the other side, which has
never been answered, and is, as it seems to
us, unanswerable Since then matters have
remained unchanged. Georgia is in the
Union to all intents and purposes, except that
she has no representatives in the Senate
Legally there is not the smallest flaw in her
claim to be considered State in the Union
any more than in the claim of Dew York
1t is now proposed, however, it is said, to
put her out of the Union in fact as we'll as in
form, by placing her under military govern
ment,' the reason being that the people of
the State are saucy and turbulent, and that
the revenue and police officers find it difficult
to discharge their duties properly, and that,
in short, life and property are not as secure
as they ought to be. 1t is quite safe to say,
however, that the condition of the State in
these respects is no worse than either North
or South Carolina or Tennessee, and is pro-
badly not one-quarter as bad as that of Texas
is likely to be for the next fifteen or twenty
years. Indeed, the only reason that exists
for not dealing with North Carolina and Ten
nessee as it is proposed to deal with Georgia,
is that in these States negroes were not ex-
cluded from the Legislature before the State
Ao1 lu nd o1n
to the Union. 1t is, however, hardly neces-
sary to argue against the right of Congress to
expel State from the Union and put it under
martial law because ma jority for the time
being is not satisfied with the local admins
aration of Justice. Those who believe Geor-
giais in the Union do not need to be convinced
that she cannot be put out of it in this way
But those who do not believe she is in it,
and who now propose to put her back under
military government, would do well to ex-
plain to us what they mean by military gov
ernment" and in what respect such govern
ment would differ from that now in exist
ence. 1t is all very well to talk of giving
General Terry absolute control" of the State,
but what is meant by his absolute control p
Real military government-that is, a govern
ment of military officers, with a force of sol
diers and police at their disposal sufficient to
make the roads safe, bring robbers and muir
derers to Justice enforce the collection of the
taxes, and drive rogues and vagabonds into
honest industry-would, as we have often
said, have been, in our opinion,
cellent thing for the South for four or five
years after the war. Both blacks and
whites would have profted by it enor-
mously. But such government was
ever instituted at the South. The govern
ment the Reconstruction acts set up for all
social purposes differed from civil govern
ment only in name. The Governor of the
State was called general, and the State
district, but in all else things went on as be-
fore. Sheriffs hunted down malefactors, civil
courts tried them under the laws and consti-
tuition. Indeed, the only marked way in
which the Reconstruction acts affected the
machinery of civil government, was by the
exclusion of most of the intelligent, educated
men in the State from all share in working it.
The Union men who took Office and went into
politics were by no means the best of their
class, and they reinforced by persons
from the North, to large number Of whom
doubtless injustice was done by Southern and
Democratic papers, but who certainly, as
body, were not persons whose advent was
any gain to the South The fact is, that
the state of things we established at the South
pending tho reconstruction of the States, has
probably been one of the worst ever witnessed.
TO call it a military government would be an
insult to the army. No soldier would, if left
to himself, tolerate it for moment; and that
its results have not been worse than they
have been reflects the highest credit both on
whites and blacks, and especially on the
blacks. 1t has consisted, as everybody who
has seen it knows perfectly well, in the COM
initial to the most ignorant the poorest aud