The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1869-12-16


RepubIfcam Party.
To Maj. General Benjamin F. Butler, III. c:
Ny DEAR SIR: Your name, | think
you will have remarked, il very often pro-
nounced from one end of our country to
the other. I-trayeling somewhat, obser-
wing little, and reading newspapers con-
often hear it mentioned,
and Git NAV surprise YOU to learn not
always admiringly And vet, while |
have for many years heard and read all
manner of evil said of you-some of it
absurdly groundless and false-1 can not
recollect that | ever heard or read sug-
gestiOn that you were fool Now, l
come before the public to impeach-not
yourself personally, but policy where
with your name is popularity and promi-
nently Unidentified, as lacking rational mo
tive and at war with common sense. /
allude to that policy with prolongs indef-
initely the prescription and disfranchise-
ment Of large portion of the men of the
South for their part in the late rebellion.
Understand that | speak from the
standpoint not of sentiment, but OF bust
ness. | do not here imptach that policy
as harsh or hateful, but as deficient in
tact-in gumption. l impeach it as nurs-
ing and intensifying enmities certain TO
subvert, at no distant day, the party
which is identified with it. < x X
| rest on the naked fact that the Re
publican party imminently needs the
good viii which this policy repels, and
must 90 under if that good will be secur-
ed.
assume that you realize the absolute
necessity of the triumph of the Fifteenth
Amendment to the success of General
Grants Administration, and that you
must be aware that the fate of that
Amendment is vet doubtful. Ten adverse
States suffice to defeat it; and seven
New jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Ken
lucky, Tennessee, California and Oregon
are already beyond hope. The loss of
Tennessee was at once calamity and
blunder-one of those intense stupidities
which a great party Is seldom allowed to
repeat. How Rhode Island, Indiana,
Georgia and Nebraska stand | need not
inform YOU. Suffice it that it will require
the wisest counsels and the best efforts to
avert the threatened failure of that great
and wise measure Of safety, benignity and
peace.
The men now coming TO Congress to
demand that Tennessee be upset, and
Virginia remanded, and Mississippi and
Texas held as satrapies for an indefinite
period, unless they vote as they are bid
den, utterl Y fail to comprehend the stu
alton. They evidently suppose that we
have nothing to stake--that we may keep
three or four states unreconstructed and
unrepresented in Congress during pleas
ure [ hope YOU know better-at all
events, | do. We do not merely need the
Fifteenth Amendment ratified before 1872
we urgently need it now. If it be de-
layed one year longer we shall have more
than one State Legislature beside that of
New York assuming to withdraw the rat
ificatiOn already accorded and, while
you and ] may rightly deny the legal va
lidity of such withdrawal, | am sure
neither Of MS will dispute its moral
weight
Connecticut Is to hold an election next
April, when the vote of her colored citi-
zens will be found exceedingly useful, if
not absolutely needed New jersey and
Pennsylvania have United States Sena-
tors depending upon the result of their
next State election respectively, and the
like votes are absolutely needed in the
former, and probably so in the latter.
Several seats in the next Congress from
Ohio and other States will be won or lost,
as the right to vote for members shall be
exercised by their whole people, or only
by the whites. Kentucky, Maryland and
Delaware will each be stoutly and hope
fully contested next year if the amend
ment be meantime ratified, while we shall
not elect one member from all three of
these States if it be not. To my appre-
hension, the control of the next House of
Representatives will probably hinge on
that event.
/ ask you, then, to consider, as prac-
teal man, whether we can afford to pick
and choose from among those disposed to
favor that Amendment-whether it will
not be suicidal folly to repel any profer-
ed or possible support? | ask YOU
whether any attempt to pry into the mo-
tives of those who may favor ito ascer-
tain whether they were not rebels, and,
if so, whether they have repented of hav-
ing been such-is not IA childish exhibit
ton Of that spirit which "goeth before
fall In short, | ask you to consider
this whole matter in the light of naked,
hearty, homely common sense, and act
upon it as the demands of the exigencv
shall seem to require.
The urgency of the case must excuse
the freedom of this appeal. Rightly or
wrongly, the country regards you as the
leader in Congress of those who have
been most exacting in their requirements
of the defeated rebels, and least inclined
to treat them with confidence or generos-
ity. The reproaches which have incur
red in this quarter will never attach to
you, and your adhesion to the policy
which the occasion demands will never be
attributed to weakness for sentimentality.
| ask you, therefore, to place yourself
promptly and heartily at the head of
movement, looking to the distant and
complete removal of all political disabili-
ties whatever from any and every one
who favors or shall favor the Fifteenth
Amendment, and their prompt restora-
ton to all privileges Of citizenship. Let
us have peace?
Yours, HORACE GREELEY.
New York, Nov. 26, 1869.
A