The Daily state journal. [volume] (Alexandria, Va.) 1868-1874, 1871-09-11


The right having been enthroned, Prori-
dence and the people ioiu take care Of con
sequences. .N
The cautious expedients Of craftsmanship,
the tentative measures of political sagacity,
are not always applicable in the conduct of
popular government. The logic of events
often overrides all the dictates Of prudence;
inspiration seizes the people, and destiny,
DESTINY, lifts her sceptre, and compels to
thorough action.
THE RECONSTRUCTION ACTS OF con-
.fESI f. GREss. a f"f ~
As to that other class Of measures by
which the Republican party provided tenn
porary governments for the revolted States,
and prepared these States for rencorpora-
ton into the Union, being measures Of mere
temporary expediency, and the creations of
mere circumstance, no extraordinary per-
lection is claimed for them. Having ceased
to be operative, their merits and defects,
their good and evil, have become things of
the past. But yet the Republican party
claims that if in their enactment and en-
forcement it erred at all, it erred on the
side of contiding. liberality toward the
Southern people. Does history anywhere
else furnish an example of whole people
who had been at murderous war with ma
ton, being admitted, within six years after
subjugation, into the body of the governing
power of the very nation assailed
THE SECRET REBELLION CALLED KU-
KLUxIsM.
1t has been found in practice, that the
permanent measures of policy which have
been enumerated, did not fully meet the ne
cessities of the political situation in the
South. The vindictivc intolerance of a por-
ton of the whites, refused to accede to the
laws establishing equality of right and pri-
vilcge. This spirit has taken the name of
Ku-Kluxism. 1t manifcsts itself in differ
ent forms according to class and locality
Among the wealthy and influential it took,
at a very early day, the form of
SOCIAL osTRACIsM
against all who should embrace, in our por-
ton of the Union, the measures Of catholic
Justice, and principles of political equality
embodied in the Republican platform. This
is the most refined form of Ku-Kluxism,
and the most cowardly. 1t is that timid
method which wealthy and intelligent mall
contents adopt, of perpetuating the war of
| sections after brave armies have left the
| field, and honorable warriors have sheathed
| the sword.
| -, THE HOME-STAYING KU-KLUX.
To some natures, benefaction craved is
an eternal insult ever after it is granted
There are ingrates of this class to be found
| in the South as well as elsewhere. The
facts of the national benignity are to such
spirits too calling for patient endurance. In
all the land, and among the millions of peo-
pie who were engaged in war against the
4 government, not one person has been exc
| cuted for treason; no man has been depriv.
ed of property to the value of dollar; nc
prescription or disfranchisement has beer
4 inflicted every man voting, and all but {
few being eligible to office, in the govern
ment against which they were lately en-
gagged in deadly warfare. A policy of for
giyeness so unprecedented, a course of &C
ton so liberal, generous and magnanimous
has not sufficed to propitiate the more ma
lignant natures here and there found ii
Southern society. 1t has but incense(
them. And where they find the friends o
the Government which has practiecd thi
/ benevolence, in a weak minority, they taxi
vengeance upon them for the generosity 0
which themselves have been the recipients
by exciting against them the prejudces ofth
populace, and driving them as culprits with
in the prison limits of social ostracism.-
They thus endeavor to make it impossible
for intelligence and responsibility to join tn
party of the government; and then they al
feet to execrate the party, because it iscom
posed only of the stranger, the humble col
ored man, and the adventurous native VIII
dares to defy the terrors of the home pro
scription. With all the bigotry of Caiaphas
and none of Pontius Pilates self-distrust
they compel the catholic faith to find it
disciples among the humble and lowly; an
then they insult and persecute the faitf
because it finds its home in cabins, and it
support among the despised and oppressed
THE NIGHT-PRowLING KU-KLUx.
The consequence of such condition
} local opinion, violently expressed and vii
dictively inculcated, by leaders of the wea
thy class, may well be imagined. Less II
fleeing, less intelligent, and less caution
spirits are thus naturally melted to deeds {
excess. And, as all persecution is more {
less cowardly, the measures taken by thes
spirits are necessarily craven. There is a
instructive feeling in the American breas
4 that opinion should be free; th'
among the most valuable rights Of ma
is that of entertaining and cherishing tt
: convictions of his own reason. Therefor
l in this country, all attempts to persecu
opinion naturally fall into clandestine m
| thods, carefully shun the light of day, al
: invariably assume cowardly forms. III
wild and reckless element in Southern s.
i ciety, which has undertaken to put dow
f opinion by violence, instinctively resorts
t dastardly methods of doing so. A Mort
: ern man of distinction, who has recent
r travelled in the South, has characterize
i these methods in language which wou
Il have been worthy Of our loftiest chivall
# in its best days: 81 am moved with pr
e found disgust when | think Of men co
# ering themselves in secondhand Gallo
l. masking their faces, arming themselves
o the teeth, and riding round the cabins
poor, harmless negroes in the night, dra
!, ging them from their beds, and whippi
= and manning them, until they are compe
ed to swear they will never again rote
70 Repubhcan ticket. hold that to be a CO..
e ardly proceeding, as well as q very base or
d and I hold it to be the duty Of the genei
n government to oppose with all its force al
Z, all its power, every such execrable outra
|, as this; for the perpetrators are, in su
J. stance and purpose, rebels against its a
n thority, and the most cowardly and skull
: ing rebels ever known to this or any 9th