The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-04-15
SPIRIT or THE PRESS.
EDITORIAL OPINIONS OF THE LEADING JOURNALS
UPON CURRENT ToPIos-ooMPILED EVERY
DAY FOR THE EVENING TELEGRAPH.
WHAT TO DO WITH THE SOUTH.

make last week of what are succinctly and
fairly enough called the Ku-klux outrages of
the South, we think there will be no diff
Guilty in inferring their true character so far
as any common character is discernible in
them. In word, they are the natural
sequel of the War of the Rebellion, with its
immense social and political changes-as
natural in their way as those disturbances we
are now witnessing in Paris, or those
milder ones which we know must exist
in Alsace and Lorraine. Nothing could
have prevented them, except the pre-
servation of the exact condition of the
South before the war, and that was impossi-
BILE. The Rebellion was not like heat light
ming, which flashes across the sky without
premonition or result. If, as one of its
pioneers declared, it took thirty years to
bring it about, we cannot expect it to wholly
subside in six years or ten. Given, there
fore, the almost entire white population of
one section of the country, not only de-
feated in their ''great expectations" OF set
ting up a pro-slavery government, but COM
PEELED to encounter the emancipation of four
millions of chattels, and their endowment
with all the rights of citizenship, the whites
themselves in the mean while being sub
ject to the always trying rule for Americans
of ''taxation without representation
we have the very conditions precedent of q
true when we consider the virulence of race
antipathies, the domineering characteristics
fostered by slavery among the late masters,
and the indiscretions and occasional abuse of
their privileges committed by the new black
citizens Of the South, abetted by their white
allies, the carpet-baggers, socalled. On the
whole we do not think that the future histo-
rian of this era will be at all surprised at the
Southern disorders which he will have to set
r.. ~, IL
his surprise may rather be at their limited
extent.
The main question, then, is not as to the
quality, but as to the quantity of the disturb
ance complained of, for that determines the
character of the remedies to be used. In the
first place, do we have before us the begin
nings of another rebellion or anything in the
nature of war? because if we do, the Govern
ment ought to lose no time in drawing, in
one form or another, upon the armory of the
war powers of the Constitution. We have
shown in our previous article that the dis
orderly events or ''outrages" at the South are
scattered, occurring mostly in remote and
thinly settled districts; that there is no
evidence of their having increased
during the last year; that they indicate no
political combination, and that they are not
formidable, unless there is some common
ulterior purpose working through them. That
there is among any of the Southern leaders,
acute enough to be dangerous, any thought
of war against the Federal Government,
cannot be possible. There is more wisdom
on this subject at the South now than
there was in 1861. With Lee dead and
Longstreet a Republican office-holder, with
the government of the Union manner by
Grant, Sherman, and Sheridan, and stronger
than it ever was at the most triumph
ant hour of the late war, it would
surely be absurd if not cruel, to charge the
South with the design of renewing the Re-
bellion in these times. 1t follows, therefore,
that the Government also may put up its
sword. The exigency is not warlike. De-
plorable and extraordinary as it is, serious as
it may be, it requires the exercise only of
constitutional and legislative powers. 1t is
to be remembered that the Government itself
has voluntarily closed the war period, even
while these outrages were going on, by re-
storing all the Southern States to their legal
relations with the Union. This was an assu-
rance and pledge that henceforth nothing
but peaceful measures were to be employed,
such measures as might be of permanent and
general applicability. Let that programme
be followed out. The Government is strong
enough to be just, if not generous.
So far as the Ku-klux demonstra-
tions are aimed against impartial
suffrage or equal rights, there is to be no
compromise with them. The faith of the ma
tion is pledged to the maintenance of all tAe
rights of citizenship granted to the freedmen,
and there must be no failure in this respect.
The fourteenth amendment appears to have
somewhat widened the powers of the Federal
Government to discharge this duty, and we
should be glad to see some measure similar to
Mr.. Shellabargers bill, divested of its clearly
Objectionable features, adopted by Congress
for that purpose. 1t should not stretch the
authority of the Federal Government a hair
beyond its constitutional limits, or trench in
the least upon the clear rights of the States,
for that, as we have shown, is not required
by the facts of the case, and would establish
a precedent prolific in abuse and full OF
danger.
Attending this measure, or standing by
itself as the best, if not the sufficient remedy
for existing evils, should be an act of genera
amnesty To this, too, the Government il
pledged as the natural, logical, and necessary
consummation of fits reconstruction policy
Manifestly it is to come some time-why no
now? The withholding it thus far has aggra
waited every evil of the situation. The disa
bilities-rightly at frst-imposed upon thu
Rebels have come to be, with the ayowed re
turn of peace, not only badge of disgrace,
constant source of irritation, fostering ant
poisoning even where it is not breaking ou
in Ku-kluxism, but denial of obvious jus
tice to those who pay the taxes of the Soutl
and own the greater part of the property
and are as deeply concerned as any in it
interest, but are yet denied any share in tn
: control of legislation. This is a wrong whic
drives the best element of the once rebellion
South into the attitude of alliance with tn
Ku-klux miscreants. 1t is time that the Gov
erment withdrew the pressure. 1t canno
recall the carpet-baggers nor elevate thei