The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-04-03

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who approved of human bondage or
bore arms against the United States, were
the halter and the prison and the test-oath.
That this opinion should have held its ground
during the heat of the Rebellion was not sur
prising; that il should be ALLOW to influence
the policy of the United States in dealing
with so weighty a question as the pacifca-
tion of the South six years after the war is
over, is, we do not hesitate to say, discredta-
BILE to our good sense. Southern human
nature is like other human nature. 1t is
affected in Just the same way by the
same influences. 1t loves life and
ease and security, is grateful for kind
ness, expands under confidence, rejoices
in the growth of civilization, and is mad
dened by injustice or hostility-not, perhaps,
in all cases in the same degree as Northern
human nature, but in some degree; and when
we say this, we furnish the key to the South
ern problem. Slavery is bad thing, and re-
bellion is q bad thing; but, were they twice
as bad, they could not convert Southern white
men into fends. They may have rendered
them exceptionally difficult for Northern men
to deal with, but this is no excuse for re-
fusing to deal with them by the ordinary
methods.
These were all pTiOrj arguments when
used five years ago; they have now been justi-
fed by actual experiment The proscriptive
system for the protection of life and property
at the South has been tried and has totally
failed. The disaffected have not grown good,
and learned to love the blacks; they have
grown worse, and have taken to killing the
blacks Wholesale and society is on the brink
of disorganization in several States. The
remedy is still the same. We must still, if
we would end confusion, resort to the
method to which we should have resorted
five years ago. we must hand the Govern
ment over to the people, and let the per-
=. IL
and are most trusted by that portion of the
community whose cooperation is most neces-
sary to the proper conduct of the Govern
ment, administer it if they will, and as best
they can. The notion that any permanent
good can come of martial law or prescription,
or that they prepare the way for anything
but more martial law and more prescription,
is o dangerous and monstrous delusion, and
we are glad to have another opportunity of
denouncingsit, in the certainty that if allowed
to govern our present policy at the present
crisis the next five years will illustrate its
folly still more strikingly than the last five
years have illustrated it.
AS to its results during the last five years,
we shall cite as a witness our old friend, the
Charleston Daily Republican, whose present
plight ought to be a warming to unscrupulous
party organs everywhere. The solemn con-
fessions it is compelled to make now, at the
eleventh hour, in the presence of the misery
and disorder into which its friends have
| plunged the State, is as striking an exposure
as we have yet seen of the mendacity and
charlatanry by which the work of reconstruc-
ton at the South has been thus far, though
| we hope not fatally, hindered 1t thus emu
merates the evils from which the State has
been suffering, and which furnish excuses t.
! the Ku-klux:-
81. In our State the superiority of numbers threw
the Government almost absolutely into the hands Of
| fhn a tfpa lv
| ruled their late masters. This was calamity. II
repetition of the old curse of South Carolina.
| namely, the ruling OF one race by another. True,
slavery had been abolished, but there are some
times expressions in the name of liberty, and these
real oppresslops ana fancled expressions too, the
so. The evil will be seen to be greater if we look
at the real condition OF the colOred people they
emerged from slavery. Their training h nd certainly
| not been OF a kind to make them statesmen. We
speak of the great body of the colored people. We
| speak kindly. There are men among them well up
in statecraft but the colored people, as people,
trained in the commonest matters Of politics and
| government. They were Ignorant and mised.
direction that is on the side of liberty; but they
had to trust some one as leader and unfortunately
they too often trusted the Verest scoundrels simply
because these pretended to bear the dear name OF
| Republican, The Republican party had given TO
party for that great work, and implicitly trusted
those who bore the standard OF that party. They
are learning wisdom In this matter, learning that
| some wolves go about dressed up as sheep"
on their social advance, it goes on to say
"But that they have made great mistakes must be
| admitted. They undertook too much. They were
not fitted 10 do everything in ruling South carolina.
| And demagogues led them not only to believe that
their late masters were in every case their foes,
and therefore to be excluded from every Office but
also led them into the fatal blunder OF putting
in office simply because they were coored. This
matter Of color has had much to do with our poll
tics. In the last election many OF the men elevated
to office were placed there for this simple rea-
son, that they were colored Some Of these had no
fitness whatever for office.
%. Corrupt and incompetent officers. This we
have too often admitted and condemned to need to
give fresh admission and condemnation now. The
evil is OF startling magnitude. 1t only affects the
Legislature but through other ranks, down to trial
"a heavy taxation, in part made necessary by
bad measures passed by the Legislature.
70 The militia so organized that, as claimed, the
whites have not the same advantages as the cooreC
people,"
Speaking of the Governors appointees, il
says some of them chad better hammer stone
in the penitentiary" than hold Office: anG
speaking of the elected officer, it says "many
are ignorant or degraded, and altogether sold
to the devil"
We might be told that phenomena like
these may be witnessed in New York which
is true. But in New York no one is disfran
chised, and we may add that, were decen
people in New York hot-blooded, like the
same class in South Carolina, and did they
believe, as the South Carolinians do, that Ku,
kluxipg would work reform they would be-
busy at it day and night, and many a hard
ened rufian would be yelling for Federal
troops to save him from the consequences oil
his villany.
We say deliberately, too, that we believe
community which sits down, as we do, under
some of the evils from which we here suffer
and Of which we hear every day, is doubles: