The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1872-11-28
T,,e President. AVA Fac south.

The President and the South.
The press dispatches of yesterday con
tlinoa a brief sketch of IN interview be
tween General GRANT sud the reporter, in
which he expressed views somewhat less
sy,npathatic with the South than letter
writers from Washington had led the
public TO believe that he entertained
He saw no more necessity, rs had been
..asScr,cd. for making q declaration OF q
"nore friendly policy toward the South
ethan for such declaration toward the
.sNorth," according to the reporter, with
what truth we had better wait for General
GRAST's message TO see. But the quoted
expression is not uncharacteristic Of General
GRANT. He is much given to putting cases
in what he considers the plain and simple
way, In which he loses sight of the main
point. The question really is not shall there
be more sympathy expressed for the South
than the North, but whether there shall be
as much Government care and favor extended
to the southern people as there have been to
those Of the North. The question is one OF
equality, impartiality. 1t is most unjust to
those who appeal for simple equality to
charge that they ask for sympathy beyond
that extended to others. We will not say
that General GRANT meant to be thus I'M
lust: but in the smoke-my-ci@ar indifference
with which he generally treats matters OF
inquiry pressed upon him he put the case In
the form he did. we suppose, without N can
ing TO be UNJUST.
General GRANT should know that the
South asks only justice, and appeals not,
like beggars, for sympathy. What she asks
is EQUALITY, right, justice. She does hope
for some modification, at least, of the damn
able kukluy legislation, without which there
will be really very little progress towards
equality and justice: towards harmony and
brotherhood in the Union. AsSurcHy we
have ground to hope for the pardon Of those
iII.lated kukIux prisoners who are sent so
far from home to be confined i'll national
prisons. and who are assessed with penalties
wofully disproportioned to their alleged Of
fences. We say alleged. for we do not con-
slider the charges fairly and honestly proved.
The accused were dragged hundreds of miles
from home for trial. They were generally
poor aud unable to provide the means Of
defence. while their accusers were interested
in their conviction pecuniarily and politi-
c;lly. They had not the fair trial which the
laws are intended to provide, and they have
been after conviction sent far away to prisons,
in which they will be forgotten: and should
they be made to serve out the long terms to
which they have been sentenced they will
return home to find their families gone and
their friends too, and will be doomed to Il
social misery which will be worse than their
Imprisonment. AS these men were convicted
under political excitement, and in great part
BIZ prcjudiced negro testimony, it would be
Il sign of the forgetting Of the past and re-
turn to peace and brotherhood if they We're
pardoned. Upon the eternal principles of
justice and charity they should be enlarged
10 return home and to pursue peaceful! lives
under a restored Union, 4 harmonious re-
public, and an impartial Administration.
Assuredly when a man like HopGE, who
a million Of dollars, is set free after brief
confinement, we might hope for cicmcncy to
the Door men who have, under concatcna-
ton OF circumstances, been sentenced to
penalties monstrously disproporiioncd to
their crimes.
We Go not design in this to arrai.n Gene
raj GRANT. lie has pardoncd Solnc kukluN
prisoners, and it is given out that lie pro-
poses to pardon all whose enlargement is
asked for by their fclow-citizcns and neigh
bors who know tl,cn best.
As for the general amnesty, another topic
touched by the reporter, we do not regard
that as Il matter Of great moment except SO
far rs it may reflect the sentiments of the
President, and his inclination to wind up
the war and the bad feelings it engen0ered.
We think it would be graceful in him to
square accounts and close the books. But that
is Il matter that rests altogether with him.
The South is sufferer; she has huubed
herself greatly; but be it understood that
she is not on her knees now at the White
House. If after what has happened
if after the reelection of General
GRANT for his last tcrm-peace and equality
is not accorded to the Union, and if the pres
sure is not lifted from oil the South, we have
cause to Be grieyously disappointed. In that
case wound will be inflicted upon General
GRANTS own reputation which will not be
healed, and to the latest posterity his memory
will be prcjudiced by an inefuceable stain.
We are not among the Respondent or
among those who expect nothing kind from
General GRANT. On the contrary, we expect
much, and the manifestations thus fur en-
courage us to hope.