Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1871-02-08
MALIGNANT mIsREpREsENTA-

II TION.
We have in every Southern State a
class of men, composed of arpet-baggers
and scalawags, who manifest not the
slightest regard for truth when they
write eff the social and political condition
of these States. They have but one pur-
pose to subserve, and that is to bring the
Southern people into disrepute by the most
scandalous Misrepresentation, in the
hope that Congress win reconstruct these
States again, and place them in the offices
from which they were driven by the YER
dict of the people through the ballot box.
The Cincinnati Chronicle publishes q
letter, which is an average specimen OF
the letters written from the South and OF
the South, by the class to whom we re
fer, and which so fully illustrates what
we have said, that we reprint it entire, as
follows:
TENNESSEE, Jan. S1.-To the Editor
of the Chronicle: Sir-I just now hap
pened to pick up copy of your issue of
Nov. S0th, last, and read sermon by
Rev. Max Observation-Disclosures ser
mon, in which, among many good say
ings, find the following bad one
Speaking of the Sunny South and its
wants, he says: The negro, as yet, mis-
understanding his emancipation, dreams
but of political office, and shuns the
labor which formerly degraded him to
bondage and slavery ..
| 81 know not what are the speakers
political sentiments, but this sounds pre-
cisely like The senseless and malignant
twaddle of our Ku-Klux Democrats,
who, because they have so often de-
| frsuded the poor freedman of the Just
wages of his labor that he has OCCASION
| ally retaliated by cheating his employer,
now curse and denounce the negro, as
utterly worthless! These disloyal Dem
| ocrats go so far as to accuse the negroes
of lapsing into bsrbarism, and instance
the fact that, since the aC1tite churches
have discontinued all missionary efforts
| among the blacks-having no longer any
pecuniary interest in them as sLGUeS-the
poor creatures are, many of them, be-
ginning TO revive, it is said, some of the
old Fetish superstitions their fathers
brought from Africa, and from which the
verify efforts of Christian masters had
not in two hundred years entirely freed
them
''What pity the truth has so few ad-
vocates and mouth pieces in the unknown
South-none but Democratic Rebel jour
nails to speak to the world. And the
SANDER above alluded to is as truthful as
anything else ever published by these
papers concerning the negro and the white
loyslist. / do not wish this published. l
write it only to show the truth.
81 Appreciating the reasons for this
suggestion, we withhold the locality of
our correspondent, but deem his testi-
mony too important not to make it public.
Ed. Chronicle.
81 can not resist the impulse to add
that our Memphis and other Southern
papers are now in the habit of asserting
that there are no Ku-Klux in the whole
South, but negroes! You doubtless have
heard of the defendant who swore the
complainant bit off his own nose Such
is the audacityo of the Rebel press here, en-
boldened by the total abandonment of the
Southern loyalists by Congress to the
cruel mercies of these determined enemies
of the Government. O."
GTaceless scamp as this fellow has
shown himself 10 be, we do not wonder
that he did not want his twaddle pub
lished, He appears to have a little con-
science left, and to have been ashamed
of the work of detraction in which he
was engaged. Nor are we surprised that
the Chronicle concealed the locality of
its correspondent, for it must have felt
that the making him known would insure
the pointing of the finger of scorn at him,
and the stunning of him by the commu-
nifty in which he resides as loathsome
pestilence. 1t is just such men as this
fellow who are continually stirring up
strife in the South. They make mischief
by their malicious misrepresentation of
the people, and then declare that "Ioyal
men" are not safe in the South. The
Southern people do not fear men who
will tell the truth about them-they in
vite such men in the North to come
and see and judge for them
selves as TO the condition of af-
fairs in these States-but they do detest
the creature whose malicious misrepre
sensations are only Circumscribed by the
capacity TO give them uttersnce. How
are we ever to become one people in the
spirit of great nation, while Northern
papers and Northern politicians of the
Radical school, give currency to reports
like that furnished the Cincinnati Chron-
icleF Here is a sweeping denuncistion
Of everybody but "loyal men," and yet
the man who bears this testimony of his
neighbors, makes no demonstration to-
wards fleeing from among such people. |
Do not his actions condemn his words? |
The Radicals in the South should make |
up their minds TO accept the situation. |
The people have no sympathy with their |
political creed, and never will have, but |
this should not so vex the Radicals as to |
make them malicious. 'Let US have |
peace" but the Radicals must give us
more tangible proof than they have that
they desire this condition of affairs.
GRANT AND THE SOUTH.
In the fall of 1865 President johnson
sent Gen. Grant through the South for the