The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-06-22

versely and forever, that the institution of
slavery was dead, and that they were glad of
it--wby should they not have frankly
accepted the situation, conformed them
selves to the new order of things, and sought
political alliance with the party, foes though
they had lately been, which represented the
almost unanimous sentiment of the North,
rather than with the feeble minority known
as the Democratic party, which, although
protesting to be their friends, had
proved treacherous to them in the
hour of need ? Had they done this every
Southern State would years ago have had en-
tire and undisturbed control of its own
affairs, universal amnesty would have been
proclaimed and the South would to-day be in
the enjoyment Of greater degree of unity,
social order, prosperity, and happiness than
existed at any time previous to the war. In
spite of the deep and, for the time being re-
vengeful feeling excited by the assassination
of President Lincoln, the Southern people
never had friends truer or more magnanimous
than were the victors at the close of the war.
The entire North was willing and anxious to
overlook the past, and to unite with the
South in healing the wounds of the
strife, and in promoting the mutual pros
perity and glory of the country. Northern
capital and Northern energy stood ready to
| enter upon Southern fields, with immigration
| following in their train, to introduce new in
dustries, restore the waste places, develop the
resources and enhance the wealth of the
South; but they were coldly received, socially
| ostracized, in many cases actually mobbed
and killed, and were finally compelled to
abandon the country altogether as practical
field for business enterprise or personal COM
fort Meanwhile the leading and influential
men of the South seated themselves beside
their shattered household gods, and in
morose and sullen pride bewailed their
reverse of fortune, and refused to
take any part either in the political or
industrial work demanded by the new order
of things. They permitted, and in many
cases countenanced, the formation of rowing
bands of miscreants and cut-throats, under
the name of Ku -klux, who secured the coun-
try, inficting Rebel vengeance upon inoffen-
sive Union men, numbering negroes, and
creating a general reign of terror through
out the country. All this time their
professed friends of the North-the
cowardly and sneaking Democratic party,
that had originally encouraged the
Rebellion by promising aid which it never
rendered--applauded them in thus continu-
ing the fight after the war was over, assured
them that all the ''radical" measures for
reconstrrctipg the Government were uncon-
stitutional, null, and void, and led them to
hope that the time would soon come when
they could return to power under the "Con.
stitution as it was, with all their old institu.
tons intact, including, if they wished it,
negro slavery. .,..,.l
Thus deceived and cajoled, the South ha:
dragged along nearly six years-which would
more than have sufficed under other auspices
to restore it to its ante war prosperity-ant
now what do We see? This same Democratic
party has the unspeakable effrontery to pre-
sent the South with platform stolen almos
bodily from the Republicans-with the mos
odious, radical pianks firmly fastened there
in--and to ask the Southern people t.
accept it, and to help them Ito make i
the medium of crawling into power. Wei
may they answer, as many of them de-
answer, that it would ''be better for the
Southern Democrats to make their bargains
with the radicals themselves and obtain al
the benefits to be derived therefrom." The
South will one day discover what a chivalrous
people, as they claim to be, ought to have
discovered long ago that it is much safer
after battle, to entrust yourself to an oper
and manly foe by whom you have been van
quished than to seek an alliance with tn,
treacherous friend who first urged you int
the fight and then refrained from offering an,
assistance until it was all over.