The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-03-18
TENNESSEE AND MISSOURI.

From the 81. Louis Republican.
Two precisely similar wrongs ought to have
precisely the same remedy by all rules of JUS
tice and science. But we are about to have an
example in which the name of the patient is
to make difference of treatment which the
case itself does not suggest nor call for. The
radicals want to rule Tennessee, and have
adopted a plan to gain their end. Butler
shouts "murder" in the House, and COM
mittee of Tennessee radicals wait upon the
President with a grievous complaint of ''out-
RACES on loyal men, which nobody ever heard
of, and ask for troops to be sent to the State.
The President, we are told, has made up his
mind to send the troops if Governor Senter
will make a request for them; and, if Cover
nor Senter does not make such request, he
will send them anyhow, on the plea of sus-
tanning the Federal officers in enforcing the
revenue laws AS there is no notable opposi-
tion to the collection of the revenue in Ten
nessee, not one-fourth as much as there has
been in Philadelphia and New York, where
no troops were thought necessary, this plea
must be regarded as only pretext for doing
a thing which it has been decided to do, for
another reason. Such a step is not only un-
warranted by law, and unworthy the Presi-
dent, but is in direct opposition to his own
conduct in the lawess radical war in Lafayette
county, Missouri, in 1867. In that case an
organized mob of radical ruff ans called
State militia, sent by the Governor of the
State, drove off the Federal revenue assessor,
Richard Vaughan, threatened to kill him if he
should attempt to return threatened the life
also of the United States commissioner, Amos
Green, and held the peaceful citizens under
a reign of terror. General Grant, then Gene
raj of the army, happened to come to st.
Louis at the time these outrages were being
committed, and was appealed to for
protection against them. At first he
thought he had no right to send
troops to Lafayette county, without request
from the Governor of the State; but, it
being represented that he had right to send
them to protect the threatened lives of
the Federal officers, he yielded, reluctantly,
so far as to order few troops from Leaven-
worth to the scene of lawlessness. But the
radical press began to denounce the act as an
illegal and unwarrantable Federal interference
in the affairs of State, and to hint to the
future radical nominee for the Presidency
| that he had better limit himself to the bounds
of his authority. The general of the army
| took the hint, withdrew the troops almost as
| soon as they had arrived on the spot, and
left the United States Revenue Assessor,
the United States Commissioner, and the
unoffending people of Lafayette county,
to the fury of Governor Fletcher, Bacon
Montgomery, and the militia who
robbed Mitchell's bank, and dragged Mr..
Berry, editor of the Richmond Freeman, TO
Lexington, with rope round his neck, after
having smashed his type. All these things
General Grant did not regard as giving him
any warrant for interfering in the affairs of
Missouri, but much less grievous condition
of things, we are told, has determined him to
interfere in the affairs of Tennessee. As
Missouri was governed by the party which
afterwards voted for him for President, while
Tennessee is under the more peaceful rule OF
party that did not vote for him are we to
accept such insufficient and personal consid
erstions as this, as the motives for the Presi
dents important official acts?