The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1870-02-03

What Papers of Other states Say.
From the Courier-Journal.
AHnes.

Another reconstruction fraud has beeI
| perpetrated upon the people of Mississippi
| a fraud so glazing in its character that
/ must meet the heartiest Condemnation of al
/ honest men of whatever section or party
4 fraud which Congress cannot sanction with
| out outraging every sense of right and jus
| tice and decency. This fraud was not the
ratification of the fourteenth and fifteenth
| amendments last Saturday. 1t was not the
electlng negro and scalawag to seats IN
| the United States. 1t was the foisting 81
Gen. Ames into the position of the United
States Senator-a position which he can hold
| but 70 disgrace. If Ames were merely car
| pet bag adventurer who went to Mississip-
pi to take his chances for political prefer
ment among the rest of the loyal vermin who
swarmed over the State at the close of the
war. mis- election 70 the Senate would have
been far less fragrant outrage than 1t is
de was sent to Jackson, not to subserve his
own political aspirations through force and
fraud, but as the commander of the fourth
military District and as the guardian OF the
peace and safety of the States placed under
his control. But instead of deyoting himself
to faithful discharge of his duties as mill
itary commander. he has employed his time
and his best energies almost exclusively in
devising indignities and abuses to be heap
Ell upon the people and in intriguing for a
place in the United States Senate. This
petty tyrant, who has so unblushingly pros
Iituted his profession to the dirty work of
a ucua0ORuG anu supple OoOA u SOuSEtSs.
cannot even claim the merit of being a citi-
zen of the State he is to represent in the Ma
tional Legislature. He has no better claim
to represent Mississippi than Wendell Phil
lips or Fred Douglass. lie is in Mississippi,
but is not of Mississippi. He is not even
there as a arpet-bagger. He IS there sim
ply on military duty, as Gen. Halleck is in
Kentucky, or as Gen. Thomas is in CalifOr-
mia. As a soldier he is eneamped Temporal
rily upon the soil of the State, but his home
a ~sfl, hi
thority, backed up by the United States bay
ouets, he has seized a high political place to
which he has no earthly claim. He could
net have been elected theretO-he could not
have been elected to any position whatever
by the people of the State. He was chosen
by his own creatures, whom he iraudulently
maneuvred into the Legislature for the ex-
press purpose of choosing him. The whole
scheme was a fraud from beginning to end,
and would be so declared if the dominant
party in Congress had spark of honest prin-
ciple left.
1t was in order to strengthen the meas
ures he had concerted for his own political
elevation that Gen. Ames, in his official re-
port upon the condition of affairs i'll Missis-
ippi so Vilely and maliciously illuminated
the people of the State. His SANDER was the
offspring of malice welded to selfish ambi-
ton, and, though too plainly such to elicit the
slighteseSpublic confidence in its truth, it
served the purpose for which it was intend
eu 1t seCuItu MN LhO PlANiASSC.oa Hio.4iP
ulating the political machinery of the whole
State so as to defeat the conservative candl-
date for Governor and TO elect a Legislature
a majority of whose members are the mere
creatures of his will. This last achieved. his
election to4he United States Senate followed
as logical sequence. And it was to reach
this consummation that he slandered the
people of the State through an official re-
port, imprisoned citizens for weeks and
months upon charges of which they were
ignorant, connived at the escape of men
guilty of crimes against the laws he Was
to enforce, and hedged in the ballot-box
with bayonets, excluding thousands upon
thousands of the most upright and intelli-
gent voters from the polls.
This is Radical reconstruction. How long
before we, as a nation, discover that we have
enough of it?