The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-09-29
POLITICS IN THE SOUTH.

From the Richmond Dispatch.
The retirement of Vice-President Cofax,
rather his withdrawal from denomination
for the Vice-Presidency, to go into training
for the Presidency, introduces new aspi-
rants for the former Office. Among the
number named is Attorney General Aker-
man. He is a gentleman who never was
heard of in this part of the world until he
was nominated for the Office he now holds
by General Grant. When so nominated,
the disposition was to be very kind towards
him. Nothing bad was known of him, and
a generous public sentiment preferred to
hope that man who had not made himself
infamous at a period when disrepute at
home was the surest way to promotion
and the shortest cut to thrift by
fraud and bribery-witness the cadetships
and the stealings out of the treasures of the
Southern States-was at least a tolerable
gentleman-a man having some scruples
against trickery and deception. But Mr..
Akerman had hardly got into his Office
before he began, in utter disregard of the
proprieties that should govern him as
national officer, to take part in the partisan
scheming and trickery intended to control
the Southern States. So we concluded at
once that he was little better than the race
of carpet-baggers whose whole study is to
hold Office in defiance of the will of the in
telligent and substantial natives of the South,
and feather their nests out of the hard earn
ings of an oppressed and outraged people.
Certainly it can be taken as no compliment
to the South to put Attorney General Aker-
man on the national ticket. He is not man
to be honored by the South and his selection
would be a mockery of the Southern people
Harmony between the sections can but be
poorly restored by such devices as this
When men ask for bread, it does not relieve
their wants to give them a stone-nor is a
serpent good substitute for fish. When
harmony is restored between the sections, it
must be through mutual confidence and trust.
Natives OF the South must be considered
trustworthy, and as common proprietors and
participants with the Northern people in the
national property of all sorts, including the
power and perquisites of the government.
Up to the present time the positions of trust
and honor in the Federal Government dis
pensed in the South have been SO confined to
carpet-baggers and cadetship traders that
even the radical organ of this city felt called
upon not long since to enter its solemn pro-
test against the rule that ignored the natives
of the South. 1t had every reason in justice
and fairness to sustain its indignant remon-
STRANGE.
We are not of the class of irreconcilable
and unqualified partisans of anything save
the country. We know no party that we are
willing to bind ourselves to or to die for but
for our country we are willing to sacrifice all.
Therefore we might be reconciled to men
with whom we did not agree. We concede
the honesty and purity of some public men
with whom we differ, and will always feel
consolation in defeat when such men are
elected. But we have had no such consola-
tion here at the South. The men here pre-
ferred by national power are generally of the
most off ensive order-men distinguished for
their illiberality and bigotry, and, with few
exceptions immigrants and officious intruders
who were not entitled by intelligence or good
standing to the respect of the communities in
whose bosom they fioated like serpents or any
other repulsive objects, which would have
been thrown back upon the waters that
vomited them on our shores if the moral
sense of the public mind could have taken
the form of repelling wave.
We tell our Northern friends that the same
! sense of attachment to our own people-the
same confidence in their fidelity-the same
! trust in their Judgment which is cherished in
the Northern public mind-exists here Our
Northern fellow-citizens should despise us if
it did not. We should despise them if we
| saw that the otfscouring of our section could
be elevated by them to places of honor and
! trust to the exclusion of their own native
born and long tried citizens; and we say that
the Federal Government and the present
dominant party in the nation not only do
nothing towards restoring harmony to the
nation by favoring et-baggers in the
South, but that they absolutely widen the
sectional breach by their schemes to advance
such men to power and place. They outrage
the public sense of the Southern States, and
fire anew the resentments of generous and
loyal people-loyal to all their public obliga-
| tions State and national.