Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1870-07-10
THE SOUTH UNDER RADICAL

Some strange influence has come over
the Radical party, says tie st. Louis Re
publican, that is causing it to reveal Sc
crets that have been locked in its bosom
for years. 1t is laboring under the first
attack of conscience it has ever expert
enced, and, like delirious criminal, ac-
cuses itself of all the crimes, one by one,
that it has been charged with, but which
heretofore it has furiously denied. A fine
example of its self-accusation is fur
nished in letter to the Chicago Tribune
from Its Washington correspondent, in
which reconstruction in each of the South
ern States is sketched in detail The pic
ture is one which the artist is forced to be
ashamed of, and no honest Radical can
contemplate it without sharing his morti-
fcaton. ''The scslawag ring of Holden,
Deweese, Abbott, Jenkins and G. w.
Swepson," he tells US, shave increased
the debt of North Carolina since the peace
$23, 600, 900. The bonds of the State
have declined to twenty-five cents on the
| dollar" "Heretofore we have heard only
reports of peace and good will in North
Carolina, because the ring has had its own
way; but now that the people are form
| ing reform party, to preserve their ex-
istence and property, the thrilling legends
of massacres, Ku-Klux, ETC., are revived
Concerning Louisiana, he says:
sMichael Hahn, once of Missouri, is
an old Louisianian, plausible, wiry and
| greedy of gain. He and Fish got mp
the Nel0 Orleans riot of 1866 as q polit-
icGl movement, calling convention of
nobodies-not parish outside of New
Orleans being represented in ito vio-
lently change the constitution of the
State This high-handed outrage on
popular government led to a fight, as was
expected; the few uSurping delegates
were attacked, and this led to Congress
sional action, to a grand stumping tour
of the North in the rear of Andrew
johnson, and the ring was then sus-
tanned against the people. To assist this
demonstration, correspondent of
powerful Northern paper was kept in the
way of this gang, and we sold our sympa
thies for series of falsehoods. The re-
suit is what we see-Louisiana Twelve
millions of dollars have been voted to
railways, the corporators thereof being
named by the ring and the margins
voted above the true cost of the road have
been distributed among the rings"
1t is refreshing, after Pres ident of
the United States has been outlawed by
the governing party, for 'fnstigating the
New Orleans riot" and after the white
people of New Orleans have been
punished for it, to be told, at last, that it
was the work of Radical conspirators,
who made fortunes out of the monstrous
crime. OF Tennessee, the correspondent
says: ''This State has the meanest dele
| CATION in the House of Representatives at
Washington, headed by Roderick R. But
Ter, who kept his seat after having been
pronounced unworthy of it. Its debt has
been increased two-thirds since the war
by jobs and expenditures to keep up non
representative rule, and in its entirety now
amounts to $50, 900, OOO." This estimate
is about $40, 900, 900 too high.
''Senator Ames, the incoming son-in-
law of Ben. Butler" he confesses was
elevated to his place by the unerring aid
of presuming bayonets, kindly boosting
him from below. Florida, he says, sis
carpet bagged and scalawagged to despair
by the Reads, Gleasons and Hamiltons
who ride her," OF Georgia, he writes:
Georgia is prey to anarchy and cor
ruption. The Ku-Klux Klan is q stand
ing political transparency, and Oliver P.
Morton, in the United States Senate, and
B. F. Butler, in the House, mutually pass
it to and fro, like couple of advertising
promenaders. The whole policy and sole
hope of the plumber set in the South is to
invent and spread diaboIcal stories of
massacres, murders, rapes, masked bat
teries, etc., etc., and under cover of these
lies to call out the militia, and keep the
better populace by intimidation from the
polls. This is the game. This is the
device. The object is entirely vulpine."
Reconstruction has cost millions of
dollars, and five years of labored legisla-
lation; and this picture is the product of
it, by the admission of its authors. 1t is
no wonder that q party, become so vile
that ii cannot bear its own stencil, that
cannot look itself in the face without a
blush, that cannot read its own record
without remorse, that is trying to escape
from its own contamination, should be
falling to pieces before the indignation of
the people.