The Charleston daily news. [volume] (Charleston, S.C.) 1865-1873, 1871-03-13
Plain Talk from the North.

While most OF the radical newspapers of
the North join in the wild and indiscriminate
hue and cry against tue Southern communi-
ties on account OF the real or fancied enor-
mites Of the foolish desperadoes of the Ku-
,Klux Khan, we are glad to see that there are
some journals at least, even 10 the ranks OF
our political opponents, which have the good
sense to see the coqdttion of affairs at the
South in the true light and the manliness to
say what. they think. The digni6ed and
scholarly Nation, certainly the BEST expo:
nent of the views Of the sober, thinking aud
educated class OF Northern Radicals, in its
last issue, speaks as follows:
sin South Carolina things grow no better.
Governor Scott, In asking for assistance, says
the Ku-klux have regular organization. with
staff and line officers aud gradations of rank,
and act as regular military forces and he de-
clares that the Legislature had to have the
roads to the capital picketed while they were
sitting recently, to prevent themselves from
being 'gobblsd up This is all horrible, but
we have no hesitation Ia saying that IL is the
not unnatltrat consequences of the caricature on
government uhich has -seen kept up in that
State for the last four gears. Nothing can we'll
justify mob law, but ,ohen ciuilised comnau-
nifty finds itself subjected to the rle Of its most
ignorant members, aided or managed by Eradu-
ish adventurers, all rational men kaoD that
mob ld,o 10 not unlikely to result. Society in
the South is 10 an unnatural state, and it Ia
kept In an unnatural state by policy of pro-
scripsion which has long ceased to have any
excuse. The proper men to leg,slate for the
South are those in aohom the community has
most confidence, and as long as they are pre-.
uented zoe shall haUe trouble The weak point
of the complaints which come from some OF
the States about the Ku-kiuX is that those
who make them have all along declared tina,
prescription was necessary to their protection
1t now appears, however, that it is no protec
ton at ALL"
Even the tickle and rattle-brained New
York Herald, which always follows rather
than leads public sentiment, talks in the
same strain. 1t says:
''After such a four years. war as that OF oul
late Southern rebellion, can it be expected
that the people snodued can quietly adap
themselves in five years, ten years or twenty
| years, to u revolution which has torn up theil
political and social system by the roots? Car
| it be expected that the Southern whites, ac
customed to rule under the constitution as
! masle ers, and to look upon their blacks as ar
inferior rarce, and us slaves by divine all
thoriLy-can it be supposed that because
| these whites have been subdued in war
| they will surrender their convictions
prejudices and principles, as condi.
tions of peace ? No. In spite Of your cman'
cipalion DEGREES and civil rights bills, ana
constitutional amendments establishing negro
civil and political equality, the Southern
whites do not believe in this equality, and
they submit to it as the French submit to the
loss OF their Rhine territories-from neces.
| sity-and witch the hope of satisfaction here.
alter. How is this difficulty to be reached by
acts Of Congress, especially when all these
Southern States have been restored as COM
piete TO their loc Il rights in The Union as
New York and New Jersey? What more can
Congress do with the K,l-Klux cut-throats of
North Carolina than with the roughs of New
York City, now that Southern reconstruction
| Ia finished ?"