The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-03-24
GOVERNMENT BY NEGROES.

From the Pan Mall Gazette.
Except in the case of the United
States, there has been great uniformity in
the history of the suppression OF rebellions
in modern times. First, there has been
severe and often sanguinary punishment in
ficted on the chiefs of the revolt; then has
succeeded period during which the success
full empire has enforced strict obedience to
itself from its subiugated dependency; and
finally has come strong desire, growing
sometimes out of policy, sometimes out of a
sense of justice, and sometimes out of mere
emotion, to win its affections, or at all
events ats voluntary acquiescence in accom-
plished facts. England is just at pre-
sent feeling an almost passionate wish
to be reconciled to Ireland, and to be
beloved by the natives of India; Austria has
done her best to come to terms with Hungary
and there are signs that the sufferings of Po-
land are beginning to cause discomfort and
compunction even in Russia. The United
States seem destined to an experience of a
different kind. On the morrow of the con-
quest their treatment of the Southern leaders
was marked by gentleness which will always
be remembered to their honor But in the
next stage of their relations with the South
the necessity for combining despotic rule
with something like forms of local self-gov-
ernment forced them to adopt policy which
has more than made up for their abstinence
from bloodshed Nobody whose intelligence
has not been impaired by the habit of repeat
ing formulas about universal suffrage can
doubt that the punishment inflicted on the
Southern whites is far the severest which
one community has ever inflicted on
another. England governed Ireland
through a minority, which the mass of
the Celtic population, however it
might hate, never dreamed of despising: the
United States rule the South through a ma
jority of negroes, contempt for whom was
almost a religion with the planter before the
attempt of secession. We are not consider
ing whether the punishment was deserved, or
whether the Northern States could possibly
help inficting it; we merely say that, after
the capacity of the negro for improvement
has been rated as highly as possible, and after
all possible deductions had been made from
the credibility of the stories published by the
Democratic press, the fact remains that gov
eminent of white men by colored ex-slaves
is the acutest form of moral torture which
has ever been applied to a community
How unfortunate it has been that the pun
ishment of the South has taken this shape
the United States is not likely to feel
until the time comes (and it will certainly
Gomez when the people of the North will
be animated with the strongest wish to be re-
conciled to even the most obstinate zealots of
secession. We should be sorry to Law down
to have shed blood like water in the first mo-
ments of triumph, if only they could have
devised some less degrading contrivance for
the provisional government of the South.
Yet it is quite certain that bloodshed is easily
forgotten; personal outrage with the greatest
| difficulty. The Hungarian mobiles appear to
have forgiven the Emperor Francis Joseph
| for his wholesale executions of their
brethren; but nobody can fail to see
that the ''irreconciiability' of some of the
most eminent of French politicians is greatly
due to recollections of the personal dis
honor to which they were subjected on
the memorable morning of the coup d'etat.
| At the present moment we are well aware that
nothing seems less important to the great
majority of the Northern people than that
the experiment which they are trying in the
South causes excessive discomfort to par
Gel of conquered Rebels; but they will pro-
baby hereafter view this experiment with
| other eyes when there comes the inevitable
waking to sympathy and pity, and when,
much about the same time, it appears that
the negroes, who are the instruments of pun
ishment, have become not only Southern
but Northern power, weighing heavily in
the scale whenever national decision has to
| be taken.