The Charleston daily news. [volume] (Charleston, S.C.) 1865-1873, 1870-03-12
Congress and the States.

The Washington correspondent of the Bal
timore Sun writes on Tuesday that there is
no longer any doubt Of the attempt to re-
construct State already fully represented
in Congress. Messrs. Arnell and Maynard,
of the Tennessee delegation in the House,
appeared before the Reconstruction Com
mittee on that day, and substantially pro-
posed that Congress should upset the pres
ent State Government of Tennessee, on the
ground that it had been placed in power IN
August last by gigantic system of fraud
that men were in office who were disfran-
chised by the Fourteenth amendment, and
that there was but little protection for life or
property there under the present state OF
affairs. They charged further that the reg
istration for the last election was illegal, that
persons voted who were not qualified, and
that the State Government did not consti-
tutionally hold its place. The committee
made some inquiries, and General Butler,
the chairman, said that he had no doubt it
was clear case for interference, and that
Congress had the power and ought to exer-
ciseit. He even went so far as to declare that
Congress could interfere in Massachusetts,
if necessary. The committee did not dis
cuss any plan, but will decide the matter
hereafter.
This is only the natural sequence Of the
powers assumed by Congress in reconstruct
ing the States of the South. Whenever the
action of the Southern States, as States, was
required They were treated as equal men,
bers of the common Union; but when it was
necessary, on political grounds, to give Rad
icalism firm foothold in the Southern States,
they were instantly treated as territories
absolutely subject to the supreme will and
pleasure of Congress in which they were
without voice and had no shadow of rep
resentation. A sliding scale was the rule.
Again and again has Congress, as in the
cases OF Virginia, Mississippi and Georgia,
deliberately violated the express pledges
which had been given to the people of
the South. They were told that if they
would eat peck of dirt, they would
be admitted to their old places in the one
and indivisible Union. And when the thing
was done, and the faces OF the whites Of the
South were sufficiently blackened and
bruised, Congress changed its tune, and de-
clared that nothing lie than bushel OF hu-
initiation would suffice.
The North seelued to expect that the Rad
ical majority in Congress could be usurpers
and law-breakers in the Carolinas and on
the Gulf and still be faithful servants Of the
glorious constitution in New England and
the West. This was grievous blunder.
The Radicals will not give up power while
law-making and !aw-breaking enable them
to retain it. They have tied the South, hand
and foot, and now the wythes are ready for
the binding of the North. Congress will so
further than Tennessee. The legislation
necessary to give effect to the Fourteenth
and Fifteenth amendments to the constitu-
ton, and the so-called duty Of Congress to
guarantee to every State 80 republican form
s'of government" will be made the whips
with which to scourge into obedience the
States of the West and North. The revolu
tion goes steadily forward, and the people
are more concerned at the fluctuations in
gold than alarmed at the decline and threat
ened fall of the "Republic OF the West"
That there will be change, which must
be change for the better, no man doubts.
And the South is ready to meet it, whether
it come clad in Imperial purple or in the
guise of an anti-Radical majority in Con-
gress, which, proving itself an apt pupil,
shall mete out to Radicalisln as Radicalism
metes out to. u.s. There is still the hope that
the people may hurl down the usurpers OF
our rights and privileges; not by eleyating
to power party pledged to undo what Rad
icalism has done, but by giving the direction
of affairs to statesmen who will plant them
selves firmly upon the constitution ''as it is,
and make their own liberty secure in re-
specting the liberty Of others. A continu-
ance of Radical rule is continuance OF dis
cord, turmoil and confusion. And what the
country demands is PEACE!