Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1872-09-20
4 u.O.u.ss-s VIEW. or PoLITxCs.

ideas and facts which he represents. 1t is
not Grant against Greeley. 1t is the Re-
publican against the Democratic porty; ii
is truth against falsehood, upright govern
ment against fraud and a sham.
Every generation has its cant word, its
catch word. There of ours are reform,
Progress" Toere is reform, there is pro-
gress. Through doubt and storm and shad-
ow, stumbling, falling, straying often, no
less the human race is cropping its way
steadfastly upward toward the utmost ideal
in religion, in government, in everything
that can bring it toward perfection. But
who are our reformers? Who.our priests
and prophets of progress Men and wo-
men of clean lives and pure hearts, men
| and women who would not only die for a
principle, but who live in it and for it, emf
| bodying it in every act of their lives, in
every trait of their characters. Are the
| holiest ideals of human nature, are reform or
progress safe in the keeping of men and
women whose deeds mock and whose char
acters outrage the very ideas which their
lips prolane7 There are men clinging to
the skirts of Horace Greeley, hoping there
by TO be dragged back to responsibility
and place who, had not their shameless
deeds destroyed in them the very sense Of
moral degradation, would hide their faces
before the sight of heaven.
Half the shout for reform is simply an
cutlery for change. There are men who at
any price must have change. They tickle
their Imagination by calling il "reform."
Men disappointed, unsatisfied, demagogues
who have missed power, adventures hum
gering for place, cormorants prowling on
the outskirts of plunder-each and all see
their only chance in some sort of change.
They steal the very name of "reform," and
bear ii as a banner toward their dreamed-of
goal. In politics, as in morals, there are
men who are born disorganizers. Their
power to destroy is illimitable. Their pas
sion is TO tear down, not to build up. Carl
Schurz is an orator, and revolutionist; the
very law of his nature fOrbds his being
other or more. He was born revolution
list, has been one all his life, and through
his wonderful mental activity, wherever
he is or ever has been, is felt as Il tremend-
Gus disorganizing force. Heaven itself
would be no heaven to him till he had first
turned it into a he'll of anarchy and revolu-
ton. Fermentation, turmoil, accusation,
striie-these to him in government are pro-
gress, reformation If by any possibility
the latter were achieved, he of all men
would be the most miserable. With no
corruption at which to thrust his glitter
ing rapier he would perish. But he never
will. If there is none, he makes one;
Al
who are now so busy spanning with flow
cry praises the "bloody chasm" which war
made, who are so eager to stretch fraternal
hands across TO the crowd on the other side
they are the men who through the long
night of civil war, while their brethren
marched and fought and fell and died,
staid at home, safe and pampered, and VEN
ted their patriotism in odes and essays, re-
sonant with the guns which their writers
never heard. Do you wonder that the long
agony of war is now to them a distant
dream? Woman, whose son, whose hus-
band, whose father fell in that holocaust of
human freedom, is it but dream to you?
These are the men who cry "Reconcila-
ton" They say that now the word for the
hour is Reconciliation" Reconciliation
with what? With the split that, genera
ton on generation, perpetuated itself by
the barbarism of human slavery and the
usurpation of political power at any cost?
Did not these cause our war? To extin-
guish these were not our dead slain Shall
we give it up now-the principles estab-
lished by such a treasury of human life
to the very men who betrayed it and did
| all that they could to destroy it? You are
told that they have all changed, these lead
ers that they clamor for Greeley because
they accept the situation. Never believe
II. They cry for him because they do not
accept it; because they find in him their
last chance TO seize once more the prizes
and the power of the government. Years
of protracted residence at the South during
and since the war have made me perfectly
conversant with Southern character and
opinion. Why deny their never ceasing
boast that, in the largest sense, they are
not Americans, they are sectionalsts,
Southerners. 1t is not their country, their
whole country. II never was and IL never
| will be. 1t is the South against the North.
| To restore the prestige of the South, to re-
| gain its supremacy, TO work out lis own
ends, in the general government is to
them the sole object TO be gained, at any
cost. There Is minority at the South who
have accepted the result of the war with
out murmur-brave and loyal men and
women, who have dared to love their whole
country, and who have seen in the civliza-
| ton of the North the only hope of the fu-
TN of thn pl,A
were not hunted and put 10 death by Pa
gans more ruthlessly than they have been
by their own brethren, in the masks of X u
Klux. 1t was TO defend the rights and pre-
serve the lives Of these true men and wo-
men against the hand of the secession MUIR
derer that the Ku-Klux law was passed,
against which such an cutlery Is now made,
as an act Of usurpation on the part ofPresi-
dent Grant, by the followers of the very
man who came TO Washington and de-
clared that the government should be
wiped from the face of the earth if 1t did
not enact it," Stringent as IL was, il was
often powerless 10 save the lives of Ameri-
can citizens against the murderous attacks
of the masked midnight assassin. Is it the
new South, the South regenerated in blood
and tears, that is now for Horace Greeley
No, it is the old South. 1t is the South
which to-day in secret clans declares etern-
al fealty to the Lost Cause;" which swears
by everything sacred ii will seek not only
the sectional supremacy of the South, but
its future independence. Why do they
shout for Horace Greeley2 Because they
accept his ancient faith of the equal rights
of all men2 No. They kiss his feet be-
cause he bailed Jefferson Davis; because
he has acknowledged the right of any State
to secede; because, in his long presidential
electioneering tour through the South, he
directly or indirectly pledged himself, II
elected, TO pensions for rebel soldiers be-