The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1871-05-06

4 att VI 0ouyTcSs W cututSC thV fAO''oaS -
the fourteenth amendment to the constitution
OF the United States, and for other purposes"
says that cit applies to all parts of the United
| States and will be enforced everywhere to the
| extent of the powers vested in the Execu-
tive" but that ''inasmuch as the necessity
| therefor is well known TO have been caused
chiefly by persistent violations of the rights of
citizens of the United States by combinations
OF lawless and disaffected persons in certain
localities, lately the theatre of insurrection
and military conflict, I do particularly exbort
the people of those parts Of the country to
suppress all such combinations by their own
voluntary efforts, through the agency of
local laws" &c. and in the event of their
failure to do so, Notwithstanding his reluc-
lance to exercise the extraordinary power con-
ferred upon him, he says:-'I will not hest
tate TO exhaust the power thus vested in the
Executive, whenever and wherever it shall
become necessary to do SO for the purpose of
securing to all citizens Of the United States
the peaceful enjoyment of the rights guaran-
teed to them by the constitution and the laws"
The law which the President thus promises
to enforce, whenever and wherever he may
deem it necessary, empowers him in his dis
cretion to suspend the habeas corpus, to pro-
claim martial law and to employ the army and
navy of the Uuited States. The lawless combi-
nations against which, if necessary, he will ex-
ercise these powers are known as the Southern
Ku Klux Klans. They are represented as
secret political organizations, whose common
object is by 1oggings and hangngs, by fire
and general system of terrorism, to put
down the Southern blacks, "scalawags" and
| ''oarpet-baggcrs, as a political party and
| thereby to turn over the vote Of the Southern
States to the democratic party in the approach
ing Presidential election. Whatever may be
the facts as to these Ku Klux Klans and their
outrages, whether exaggerated or otherwise,
we shall not here discuss. Our present purpose
is to consider this proclamation of the President
and the so-called Ku Klux bill to which it
refers in their political aspects in reference to
the Presidential succession.
There are two parties in the South which
we may call the administration party and
the opposition party The administration
party is mainly composed of the Southern
blacks, is mainly directed by Northern political
adventurers known as ''carpet-baggers, willie
the comparatively few native Southern whites
belonging to it are, by the other side, desig-
mated as "scalawags, and according to Web
stcr, "scalawag" is IAN impudent scamp
scapegrace." The opposition party is almost
wholly made up Of the Southern whites, from
the planters-the dominant, landholding and
w-abdns classic the ''poor white trash"
as defined by the blacks, including the miser-
able North Carolina star HEELS the South
Carolina "sandhilers" and the Georgia
CRACKERS In the old slavery times these
elements Of the 'poor white trash" were
largely Migrants and pariahs, living among
the pine barrens and sand hills by suferauce
from the lani-ownng planters. But under the
laws Of slavery these pariahs were still so far
above the blacks in the social scale that the
''sandhller," however much despised By the
planter and his slaves, could still afford to
lord il at least over the ''free Niger 1t can
be understood, then, how genuine must be the
hatred against the negroes by the uncultivated
Southern ''poor white trash" under the new
order Of things, which gives the negro equal
the materials to great extent Of these Ku
KlnX Klans.
But the whole body of the Southern white
population, of every class, feels more or less
the pains and penalties of revelation which
has torn up their cherished social and politi-
cal institutions by the roots and which, politi-
cally, has made slaves of the masters and
masters of the slaves. Granting that it is
perfectly natural that the blacks, emancipated
and eentranehised by the party in power,
should en- masse join this party, what else
could be expected from the whites, under
their political misforunes and disabilities, but
a common political cause against the blacks?
Take, for example, the State Of South Caro-
lima. Here we have a population of three
hundred thousand whites and four hundred
thousand blacks--the white clement possessing
all the lands and representing the capital,
property, education and intelligence of the
State, and the black element stepped in the
ignorance, stupidity, wrongs and hates of
slavery. Yet this black clement now governs
South Carolina, and in such spirit of igno-
rance and stupid arrogance that il appears TO
have pushed the dis yustcd and bewildered
whites to the verge Of civil war. Under this
condition of things can we wonder at the
Indifference of the white planters to the law
less Ku Klux combinations referred to by
General Grant? Trained to a life Of aristo-
cratic Incidence, is it not consistent with the
Carolina planters training to let things around
him take their course when he is powerless TO
command them?
Here, then, we have these two Southern
partiee-an administration aud an opposition
party, party of whites and party of blacks