Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1872-09-16

The clamor of the Greeleyites about the on
preston of the south is too absurd, one would
think, to deceive anybody, hut there seems to be
a vague notion in the minds of some people that
the southern states are under military govern
ment; that generals issue orders to courts and
legislatures, and that corporal with file of
soldiers is at everybody's elbow; or if this is not
literally true, that there are soldiers enough
there TO keep the people in awe, and under the
fear of some kind OF military persecution, TO
compel them TO vote for candidates whom they
DO not wish to elect, or abstain from voting for
the men whose election they desire. OF course
this notion is entirely wrong; there Is no such
thing at present, nor has been for several years
past, as military rule in any part of the United
States. Nobody distinctly asserts that it does eX-
list, but great many speakers and writers who
know better, continue to talk of ''bayonetrulc,"
military satrapies," military occupation
and other such phrases, as if the people Of the
south were at the mercy of q dictator. How
utterly baseless is that charge, as well as some
others of a similar nature, appears from letter
addressed to the editor Of the NewYork Evening
Post by gentleman Of the south, who, it says,
during the war won as gallant name as any
man in the confederate service, but when the
war closed laid down his arms and resumed his
obedience The letter is as follows:
81 desire to call your attention to a charge
often brought against Gen. Grant namely the
military occupation Of the south. This is all
fiction. There is not to-day federal soldier in
Virginia outside of Fort Monroe. / have no
doubt it is Just the same in the other southern
states. II there is any state in which Gen. Graut
would use the military to oYerawe the people
for political purposes il would be this, for it has
all the time been against him. IL South Caro-
lima there is an overwhelming majority of repub-
licans, who can project themselves without pro-
lection from the federal government. What
would be the use of sending a military force
when he already had MAJORITY
another point: There is a great cry about
carpel-haggers Very true. In some of the
southern states-for example, South Carolina
the legislature is composed of negroes and car
pet-baggers; but this is the result Of universal
suffrage. 1t would be a mockery TO invest me
with the right of suffrage, and then say the ma
iority must not rule. We are not plundered by
federal but state officials. | am a subscriber to
your paper, and would like TO see these charges
editorially ventilated.
81 would call your attention further to the
fact that in no southern state has there been for
five years any restriction on the right of suffrage
that did not equally apply to white and black.
No one was prevented from voting for his par
ticipation in the rebelliOn-only few from
holding office. But we always had a plenty of
good men-coniederate soldicrs-who had never
held office before the war, who were not diSqual-
fled from holding Office if they could be elected
to them. | have myself always been eligible
both TO office and to the right to vote"