Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1872-02-20

, poverty and ruin in all their land, and them
selves absolutely begears among peopl,
who had nothing to give. Under such cir
cumstances it was impossible to restore har
mony in the civil government without som'
confusion. Yet so earnestly did that people
struggle TO return to their allegiance, anC
thus entitle themselves to the protection
which had been promised them, that from
the day of the surrender of their armies nc
hostile arm has ever been raised against the
authority of the United States.
A HORDE OF PLUNDERERs.
Before even breathing time was allowed
them a set of harpies, most of whom had
shirked the dangers of the battlefield, camp.
followers, horse-holders, cowboys, plumber.
ers from both sides during all the years OF
strife, rushed down siDgly and in squads on
4 that people, thus PROSTATE and defenseleSs
and for their own private gain seized and
carried off whatever could be found worth
Selling in that country. All romonsttnnces
or resistance was stifed and crushed out by
the cry Of disloyalty and treason which they
raised against Southern people, and by the
pretense that the plunderers were persecu-
ted because of their loyalty and devotion to
the Union, and especially to the Republican
party and its continued supremacy.
GEN. GRANTS TESTIMONY.
Then investigation was instituted, and
among others, the present President then
! General of the army, went to portions of
! the South to examine for himself. The
minority know of no better way to set forth
the true state of the facts existing in those
/ States, than to quote from bis report of the
testimony, which was dated 18th of Deem
| Der, 1865. All impartial men then agreed
that the statement of Gen. Grant was true.
| If punishments had been deemed polite or
possible, that was the time TO inflict them.
ONERoUs CONDITIONS.
The minority state that the men of the
| South, under the programme laid down for
them, re-organized their State governments,
| elected Representatives and Senators TO
Congress, ratified the Thirteenth amend
ment by their Legislatures, conferred civil
! rights on their emancipated slaves-in short,
did all they thought the Federal Govern
| ment wished them to do. But they were
mistaken. They had failed t. elect men
! to Congress who would blindly obey the
orders of the leaders who dictated, and
were determined to dictate, the legislation
of the country. A system has grown I'D
whereby great mOneyed monopolies were
fostered and enriched at the expense of the
labor, and especially of the agricultural
labor, which it is not believed that the re-
presentation of Southern Representatives
would sustain. The doors of the Congress
were closed to them; of course no one
avowed the true reason. So far as they
were concerned,
TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION
was their fate from that time forward, and
has so continued, with some exceptions,
substantially until now. When they had
not representatives in the Congress, a tax
of three cents pound was levied on all
cotton exported, that beingtheir great staple
product, while every other portion of the
country could export its product duty free.
The freedmen's bureau bill and the civil
rights bill were next imposed upon them
by the other States. Then followed a
series of reconstruction measures, with the
fourteenth and fifteenth amendme nts, which
they were required to accept, endorse and
approve as conditions precedent to being
allowed to having any civil governments at
all, because, until that was done, the
liberty and property Of every man, woman
and child, loyal and dislOyal, white and
black, were held at the mercy Of any soldier
who might be placed over them. A careful
reading Of the testimony taken would con-
vince every impartial man that the endur-
snce and long suffering of the people have
been such as no people have ever exhibited.
THE CARPET-BAGGERs.
Extracts are made from the evidence to
show the CONCENTRATIONS and feelings Of the
people Of the South towards the classes of
persons who have cause to be generally
known as carpet-baggers and sCallawags,
and show that gentlemen, regardless Of
politics, who go South from the Northern
States and in good faith to settle among
that people, are as kindly treated and as
likely to be promoted to official positions
after they are known as they would be if
they moved from one Southern State to
another. IThe financial exhibit has already
been placed before our readets.
Is IT STRANGE?
In view of the enormous debt which is
shown to have been wantonly, cOrruptly and
fraudulently heaped upon people as poor
as the census reports show, with tive-eighths
Of their property gone, and the taxation on
the remnant nearly fOurfOld as much as it
was on the whole when affairs were hon
estly managed, is it to be expected that the
people of these States will have either love
or respect for the men or party by whom
they have Leen thus plundered? No man
can look at our testimony, taken before the
committee, without coming to the conclu-
sion that no people had ever been so merci=
lessly robbed and plundered, so wantonly
and causelesSly degraded, and so recklessly
exposed to the rapaCity and lust of the ignO-
rant and vicious portion of their own COM
munity and other States, as the people of
the South have been for the last six years.
History, till now, gives no account ola con-
queror so cruel as to place his vanquished
foes under the dominion of their former
slaves. That was reserved for the Radical
rulers in this great Republic. This is so
to-day in South Carolina, Texas and Ar
kansas; and in 1866 and 1868 it was so in
Tennessee and elsewhere. The emanCipa-
ted slaves in regiments parade the State in
Federal uniforms armed CGp-G-pie with the
most approved weapons, paid for by taxation
imposed on their former masters, while
white men are denied the right to
bear arms or organize even as militia for
the protection of their houses, property, or
the persons of their wives and children.
The minority say that when the testimony
before us is analysed and the ignorance or
degradation Of tie Southern negro is under
stood, when as Gen. Grant said in his report
in December, 1866, ''they believe that the
property of their former masters of right
belonged to them, and was not entitled to
any protection" when as all the testimony
shows, carpet-baggers, bureau agents, and
LOYAL leaguers who went to those States
made the wrongs the negroes had suffered,
and the right they had to take whatever they
pleased of the property they had laboredto
acquire for their masters the theme of their
harangues, when in secret organizations ha-
tired of the white race of the South was in
stilled into the minds Of these ignorant peo-
pie by every art and every vile that bad
men could devise, when the negroes were
formed into militia organizations and the
white people Of these States were denied
the use of arms, when robbery and murder
were things of daily occurrence, when the
great mass of the most intelligent whites
were DISTINGUISHED, and the ballot was put
into the hands of the negro and the Gov
eminent at Washington, when every
promise made and every law enacted was
broken and disregarded by the Federal au-
thorities whenever it suited their purpose to |
do so, and soon the courts were closed and
the Federal officers who were made by the
Congress the absolute rulers and dispensers
of what they called justice, ignored, insulted
and trampled on the rights of the OstraCised
and DISTINGUISHED white man, the official