Herald and tribune. [volume] (Jonesborough, Tenn.) 1869-current, 1872-08-15
RECONCILIATION


Under this head the Cincinnati Time.
Of the 9Th inst, says:
We hear much, in these days. of recon.
ciliation. Has it occurred to those who
are trying to appropriate this word as
Democratic capital, that reconciliation re.
quires a mutual spirit of good will? Sub.
mission to an intolerant spirit of unrelent.
ing hostility is quite a different thing.
The Southern people who revolted against
the Government were forced, by hard
Sighting, to lay down their arms. An in
eident Of the war was emancipation. A
logical result of emancipation was confer
ring upon the enfranchised all the privi-
leges of citizens and voters-equality of
rights under the law. The Republican
party, which conducted the Government
through the great intestine strife, and
through the subsequent processes of re-
construction, manifestly could not yield
these points. In a true spirit Of concilia-
ton the Southern whites who went into
the rebellion would have accepted these
terms in good faith, along with the mag
neutrality-suspicious. in any civil war
which has been extended towards them
as the conquered party.
This is really all the Republicans have
asked, are now asking. All severe PEN
alties have been remitted-not excepting
even the gravcst offenders and the most
responsible leaders of the rebellion.
There has been no coniscation of proper
~. following the surrender of the Apo
mattox. Not a single person is deprived
of the full rights of citizenship, including
the elective franchise only the re-
striction as to holding office. prescribed
by the Fourteenth Amendment to the
Constitution and even that penalty has
been removed in nearly every case by a
two third vote of Congress, as authorized
by this amendment.
Where, then is the grievance? In
nothing save the efforts of the Govern
ment to protest all men at the South,
white and black, in the full and free ex-
ercise of their constitutional rights and
nmmuAities. An order exists at the
South, the Ku Klux secret assassins, in
tended to diminish the number of Repub-
hcan voters, to intimidate those who sur
vive these attacks ON their liberties, and
in general, in the expressive phrase of the
conspirators, ''to make the negro know
bis place." With these masked maraud-
ers and midnight murderers the strong
arm of the Government has come in con-
tact ; and hence the huge o~utcries about
standardization and '.despotism." This
Is the whole in q nutshell.
Now, what is the significance of the
word reconciliation" in this connection?
Whose fault is it, if VIC do not shave
reaceT" Do Mr.. Greeley and his friends
propose to nave peace by giving the Ku-
kiux. and all ut the South who indulge
the same spirit, their own way without OBJ
struction? That is the real issue. There
can be no rue reconciliation, except
through allegiance to the Constitution and
the laws, which the Cincinnati Baltimore
platform processes to sustain. On the
Republican side there is nothing lacking.
Reconciliation ought, by a law abiding
temper and a pacific disposition at the
South, to be now complete.
II is an undeniable fact that, from the
moment of the surrender of Lees army
until to-day, General Grant has personally
done more towards reconciliation, in a
m~agnanimous spirit towards the people
whose surrender he received, than Mr..
Greeley When it was proposed 70 arrest
Lee and ether Rebel Generals for treason,
General Grant emphatically protested,
md declared that if 1t were done he
would resign his commission in the army
He went through the South not long after
the war, on an official mission to examine
and report its condition, and the repre-
sentations he made were so liberal and so
favorable as to the pacific spirit and good
conduct of the Southern people, as to be
esnsured by the extremists of the North
who jumped at different conclusions. and
q scheme was set on foot to send General
Carl Schurz (none other than the present
Senator from Missouri, who was about
those days, if not actually at the very
time, a correspondent of MIR. Greeley's
Irib.g,e,) to make a counteracting report.
Schurz did the job-yes. our veritable
Mephistopheles land made a report ac-
cordingly, in the most radical spirit, and
Of quite q contrary effect to that of Gen.
Grant. This report of Schurz may or
may not have been one sided and unjust to
the South. The generous magnani'nity
was , at all events, chiefly on the side of
Grant.
Without multiplying instances of these
characteristics of President Grant through
out-his acts corresponding with his mem
orable words, "Let us have peace"-we
are glad to cite to-day, as evidence of a
mutual spirit of Cancellation at the South.
the testimony of Prof. Ewell. of William
and Mary College, in Viryinia-a brother
Of the noted Confederate General Eweii
who states. in a letter just published,
that "among the frst appealed to in aid
Of the restoration of the college was Pres
ident Grant. who, after properly inform
ing himself of the facts of the case, ear
nestly took up the cause, and by letters
and otherwise did all that any friend of
the College of William and Mary could
have asked him to do" The Professor
further says that in a consultation with
General Grant, .just after his election to
the Presidency of the United States. he
and expressed every DISPOSE.
tlon TO assist in the material, political, and
intelIectual prosperity of Virginia.
Had a uniform spirit of kindly recog-t