Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1870-02-15

the PRESIDENTS private room he found e4-
Governor Ward, of New Jersey, there;
that Grant was whiting stick and
smoking, and that he and Ward were
talking about that Long Branch proper
ty; that Grant had asked Ward how
much he thought it was worth; that Ward
said be didn't know, but he hoped Grant
wouldn'Lsell it. "No," said Grant, 81
don't think l win sell it. It's very nice
piece of property" "The incest in the
State of New Jersey" said Ward, "and
you'd better hold on to it. It's getting
better and better every day"
| couldn't exactly understand what all
this had to do with the Supreme Bench,
for up to this time l had not heard Mr..
Bradley named-so / asked what the con-
nection was. ooh, it has d-n sight to
do with it., said the exasperated Radical.
'Ward has come on here to get Bradley,
of New jersey, appointed, and l infer
from the way they were talking that he
had succeeded" Il! ~,
The next day Bradley's nomination was
sent to the Senate, and meeting my Re
publican friend in the Senate lobby re-
minded him of our talk on the avenue,
and said hewas right in his guess about
the object and success of Wards visit.
"Of course was, said he, "and wish
you'd expose the sssing," I'll do it, " said
l, ''but it won't do any good. One-half
of the people in the Republican party
have determined to believe nothing inju-
rious to Grant, and the other half are al
ways ready to be persuaded that what
would be crime in another President is
virtue in Grant" However said /,
'1'll make paragraph about it" Aud
so have.
CARPET-BAGGING.
It is now quite well understood that at
least one carpet-bag member of the House
gentleman from South Carolina-is i'm
plicated in the sale of West Point cadet
ships. There is promise of full exposure,
and the public will soon know all about it.
But the most remarkable feature of. this
thing to my mind is-not that carpet-bag-
gers should sell their influence and their
votes for such sums as they can get, but
that people should wonder when they do
so. Congress has deliberately imposed this
set of vile creatures upon ten States of
the Union. The reconstruction laws have
rendered anything like respectable repre-
sentation impossible; they have excluded
from office every man in the South who
is fit to hold it, and made ten millions
of people the victims of unprincipled
adventures. You cannot name to-
day among the carpet-bag members
and Senators in Congress a single man
who could be elected to any Office in the
county in the North from which he emf
grated to fasten himself upon an I'm
willing people through the Instrumental
ty of Congressional reconstruction. The
Republicans in Congress are beginning to
see this, and to complain of it; but it is
too late. As Mirabeau said in the Con
vention of France, when the Able
Sleyes complained of the extremes to
which the revolutionists were going, ''My
| dear Able, you have loosed the bull; do
you think he will not use his horns2''
Congress has 'Hoosed the bull, " and lie is
simply using his horns. There never was
a more dastardly crime committed against
a brave people than that which called the
carpet-baggers into existence, and filled
the halls of Congress with the mean
wretches who now represent the
South. Nor is the injury confined
to the South alone. The carpet
bagger's vote counts for as much
on tariff or currency question affect
ing the whole country as the vote of a
member from New York or Cincinnati !;
and we have now twenty such votes in
the Senate and eighty in the House-any
one of them q merchantahle article for
sale to the highest bidder, the aggregate
forming an army of rascality sufficiently
large 10 corrupt and befoul the entire
legislation of Congress. Nor is there any
prospect of immediate relief. The infu-
ence of these men is constantly excited
to prevent the extension of amnesty to
those likely to prove competitors for their
succession. A general removal of disa-
bilities would soon purify the political
atmosphere of the South; but Congress
never was farther from that sort of mag
nanimity than it is to-day. The South
ern delegations are solid against it, and
are likely to remain so and to defeat any
measure of the kind.