Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1870-03-22
WASHINGTON LETTER.


| The ARLINGTON, March 16.-Fhe Ser
atorial confusers of useful knowledge al
pounding away at Georgia. Senate
Revels is to deliver, to-day, Gov. Bullock
speech, and the old routine of talk will s
on over and over to dreary length o
apopletic stupidity. Troops are needle
In North Carolina. Troops are called 70
in Tennessee, and there seems to be NJ
end of tinkering, patching and threatenin.
on the part of the majority in Congress
And when we sift it down to a real defini
ton, reconstruction means voting the Re
publican ticket on
We have given the negro the ballot
VIII have expended vast sums ON his edu
cation and for his support, and yet the
legislation in his behalf has no limit. L
is the hopeless Legislation of vengeance.
Some fellow writes Senator Sumner a
letter full of lamentations and direfnl
| forebodings, and Massachusetts, elon-
| gated agony-the animated personal pro-
noun ''I'-rises in his place, has the
letter read, and then moves an enactment
looking to the humiliation of the disloyal
element of the South. Well, gentlemen,
it can't be annihilated in that way. The
disloyal party, as you call it, is the grow
ing element in the South, and Cannot be
suppressed unless we are willing to give
up our theory of government and wipe
out the State lines, and substitute military
dependencies in their stead. Let us see
where we are.
After passing the most stringent enact
ments, after driving the disloyal element
from all political power, we find that it
yet exists 1t makes up the majority in
numbers, and the vast preponderance of
brain. 1t controls the press, makes public
sentiment and holds the property. 1t is
more dangerous to our Government out of
Office than in. Oppressed, insulted and
abused, it grows in deadly antagonism to
our best interest, and sooner or later will
come up and take control to our injury.
When the war ended, had we, like any
other Government situated as we were,
seized upon the leaders and hung them,
confscated property right and left, and
left our armies to occupy the lands they
had conquered, we would now be at peace.
But recognizing our old theory of govern.
ment, we hung no one, confiscated no
lands, withdrew our armies, and so sought
to restore the States as the fathers de-
signed. Under this state of fact concilia-
ton was our policy, and after settling by
law the issues that grew out of the war,
we should have treated our Southern eiti-
zens as if no war had ever existed. We
have done neither one nor the other, and
now find the evil of irritating and aggra-
waiting the element we are forced to leave
in power whether we leave it in office or
not.
l know of nothing more childish or
puerile than to hear Charles Sumner or
Puritan Drake reading anonymous letters
and shaking their senatorial fingers at
power that has to-day more brain, more
pluck, and far more craftsmanship than
these our impotent lawmakers.
have no question but that Sumner,
Drake & Co. are honest in this. But one
in saying so is forced to compliment their
morals at the expense of their intellect.
But back of these, and urging them on,
are certain other Lawmakers not so honest.
AS the matter stands, neither the brain nor
the material interests of the South are
represented in Congress. New England
and Pennsylvania represent that region.
The scalawag or carpet-bagger sits like a
monkey on hand-organ, watching with
keenest eyes the whip of his master. The
immense mOneycd interests, the accumu-
lated and accommodating capital of few,
own and possess and occupy the South.
Hence IT is well never to be done recon-
structing. We have toled the South along
as farmer does a stupid OK, with nubbins
of corn, until the poor beast finds that it
is the yoke and not the feed that he was
TO get.
THE LATE INDIAN MAsSORE.
One of the best illustrations of our pecu-
liar moral condition is to be found in the
way we receive and treat the hor-
rible butchery of men, women and child
aen in the late Piegan affair. To realize
this, let one suppose for a moment that
instead of Indians these sufferers were
negroes. What fearful howl we would
have sent up. While the wires were
trembling with the first accounts of the
infamous deed, Senator Sumner was read
ing letters from unknown people telling
of the insults-not Outrages-perpetrated
on American citizens of African descent
in the South; and he poured out a perfect
diarrhea of words in windy wrath over
these wrongs. Nota word comes from
him or Wilson or Drake, or from any
hot-gospeler, in behalf of the Indian. On
the contrary, the deadliest enemy to the
red men is to be found in the Indian Ring,
composed of such pious leaders as Har-
Ian and Pomeroy.