New national era. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1870-1874, 1871-05-18
VOL. U.--NO. 1872

his accession to Office, is the only Just and hon.
orable policy, correct in idea and fruitful OF
benefcent results, and we trust it may be ex-
tended to every particular of our relations with
those tribes
| Mr. Phillips continued:
| said, when l began, that / thought our
meeting was being held in one of the hours oil
the gravest peril to the institutions of. the Re-
public. This is my reason You recollect in
! 1861 there were two classes Of rebels--one was
represented by Jefferson Davis, and the other
by Andrew Johnson. The policy of one was
to provoke rupture, and by open war to assail
the nation MISUNDERSTANDING that the time
was ripe at last for their daring enterprise. II
you recall the Ia; debate, before the secession
of the prominent Southern Senators, you re-
member how earnestly some of tbem-some,
indeed, who finally went Outraged upon their
comrades the wise and SAFE and more prob
ably successful course of retaining their seats
and carrying on more boldly, with less equivo-
cation and concealment, the policy of the South
in undermining the national Institutions, in
stead of assailing them. Fortunately for us,
the madness of the hour smothered that pro-
jet, and in the current of battle that form of
| secession was deliberately, emphatically, and
we may say finally wiped out And if battles
can decide IL, that heresy Of secession, in the
name Of State rights, was forever trampled
ont.
saw, if battle could decide it; but the
craftsmanship of the South never meant that
battle should decide it. They had tive atrlngs
to their bow. They meant first to try what
remedy there was in the drawn sword. And
| If Providence had permitted US Abraham Lin
coins life, or an honest man to succeed him,
we should have cut both strings of their bow
when we cut the one of open rebellion. The
continuance of four or eight years OF an honest
| 49, tic ntlaQ ha
yond resurrection. Bat with the. advent of
Andrew johnson there was opened door of
which the South Immediately avaied itself. /
tried the other side-the other method Of con-
tinuing the fight inside the ranks. The soldier
that fights You in your own uniform is an in
finltely more dangerous foe than the soldier
marsbaled under separate colors on the othe rside
of the field 4 md that is the reason why this re
newed rebellion of assasslns is likely to prove
wholly as hard to manage IA the open rebellion
of 1861. Because, in the first place, Northern
New York who Is the sworn assistant of the
kn klux. He is neither mobbed in his house,
nor IN his editorial quarters, nor hunted out
ef the city. But the public in 1861 would not
bear Democratic cOmrade of Jefferson Davis.
Then he stood out in his own colors, and the
enthusiasm and hot frenzy Of nation at war
trampied out the whole class Of Northern
sympatbzers with actual rebels in arms. But
you cannot count on any such feeling to day
Ia trample out the organized rebellion in ten
States.
When | was in Washington about two
months ago, had it from an authority inside
the ku-klux klan-one who had right to
speak-that their organization was so perfect
there could not be one crime committed in any
single Southern State where if the Govern
ment trusted to its punishment by the tribunal
ola jury, that organization, secret association,
was not powerful enough to pack the jury and
secure al acquital. So that this largely spread
and deeply rooted secret organization like the
MasOns of thirty years ago) can utterly defeat
and defy civil war. And the moral which these
repentant lips drew for me, from his own actual
experience, was: 'If you can do nothing with
us except by judge on bench and twelve jury
men in box, the effort is absolutely contempt
ible. We can sweep the States in utter def
ance ofth State government, if that is the aim
of your method
Now l believe that you will find that the
evidence before the Senate committee amply
supports these statements and that unless
President Grant has made up his mind to
stretch the long arm of his new power into the
center of the rebel States, and Strangle this
rebellion OF assassins, he will never have sue
cess and when i say that am only repeating
the utterances of the counselor who stands
nearest to the right hand of the President, j
am only repeating what the man says whose
opportunities are the largest to Investigate the
facts-whose political insight is the keenest to
discover them-that if Congress had adjourned
without giving Gen. Grant even the limited
power which he has to day, and had left US to
meet the LIST day of December as we stood on
the lst of March, there never would have been
Republican successor to Gen. Grant in the
White House. And here, gentlemen, is where
j think that the labor question and rebellion
question run into each other. The great cor
poration of Pennsylvania and the West mean
to have President, and that President is not
Ulysses S. Grant. Here the speaker reviewed,
in general way, the effect of the removal of
Senator Sumner from the craftsmanship of the
Committee on Foreign A fairs, as it was visible
among the people That rebuke forced from
the President this ku-Klux message. believe
that the nation stands today just where Gen.
Butler stood in New Orleans when he arrested
Mumford.
Now want Gen. Grant to 90 down into
Georgia and South Carolina, and not arrest
two men, such as the telegraph told us were
arrested the other day, of dsreputable charac-
| ter. | want him to go down and arrest some
! ex-General who counts his acres by thousands
numbers his wealth 10y millions, and stands
possessed of the loving admiration Of half the
/ South. L want him to track him to his lair i'm
| this nest of assassins, and arrest him at mid
night, try him before daylight, and hang him
before the sun is an hour high. When this is
done You will never hear of the ku klux again,
except in nursery legend.
But if this is not done that power will enter
the White House That will cause you to have
the war TO fight over again, and even, in the
| first session of Congress afterward, if there is
! no ac tual legislation Oh the subject, of repu-
diatiOn, the very discussion of it will send the
national credit down fifty per cent. When
| that is done you can't fight again because you
can't borrow money. This is only the rebel
lion lighting you in your own uniform. don {
know whether General Grant will follow the
course of the ablest man who stands nearest to
/ him in Congress aud that is the man who
hung Mumford in New Orleans. l think Charles
| Sumner never said truer word than that i.
General Grant will put his whole heart in his
work and grappls with the kuklux az he did
in his policy IN regard to Santo Domingo, we
will have no more ku klux existing i'm ninety
days. 1t does not need an army. You do not
need TO deluge the South with blood You
do rot need more than fl " lives to be taken,
| but they must be the lives or the topmost. tn a.
stand out lke the peaks of the Alps
Voce-How about the carpa bagrersg
| Mr.. Phillips described the methods by shicb
the respectable, industrious men of tbs North.
who had gone Soutlss to settle, taking capital
with them, and in all respects acting mod3tly
and hOnorably, were driven out, while the
carpet baggers, In consequence Of their reck
iessness and peculiarty of temperament, sue
ceeded in remaining. But whose fault vas it.,
he continued, that oily carpet.5aggers re-
NAMED thercy As the South had made its
had% en- On IN "a ,nusf liz uhp ouaatinn /,