Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1872-07-24
THE GRANT CAMPAIGN.

Secretary Boutwell,, in North Carolina,
and Senator Brownlow, in Tennessee, have
mapped out the plan Of the Grant cam
paign in the South. Hopeless of carrying
the intelligent white vote of the South for
Grant, Gen. Grants Sec etary Of the Treas
ury is endeavoring to solidify the negro vote
against Greeley, by stirring up all the pas
sions of ignorant blacks against the white
race. He is determined that there shall be
no peace between the two races if they can
help it; for If the negro were permit
ted 10 corfde in his former mas
ter as friend, he would
listen to reason, and aid in putting the
Grant party out of power as the worst enc
my TO both races. Even SO good an apol-
ogist for the Grant administration as the
New York Herald says of Secretary Bout
wells speech At Greensboro, North Carroll
ma, it was, in its political aspect, danger
GUS and reprehensble effort to array the
Southern blacks against their white fellow
citizens and to scatter the seeds
of distlIlst, hatred and revenge broad
cast over the South. The Secretary
of the Treasury denounced and spurned
the proposition that the people of the
Northern and Southern States-the men
had fought the battles of the Confederacy
under the banners of Lee and Stonewall
Jackson, and the men who had marched to
victory under the lead of Sheridan and
Grant-shal now clasp hands across the
bloody chasm made by the war and bury
forever the bitter memories of the past. No;
rather let us keep alive the animosties and
hatTeds that led to the rebellion, until the
cAasm shall be filled, it may be, with the
mangled victims of a more cruel war, a war
of race. Slavery, says Secretary Boutwell,
was the cause of this "deep, dark and por-
tentous chasm," and injustice is the essen
tial characteristic of slavery. He
refuses to recognize the fact that slavery is
dead; tina. it can never again be revived in
the United States while the world continues;
that the Southern people, one and all, accept
the results of the war; that the white citi-
zens Of the South ask only to be allowed TO
live in peace, to repair their shattered for
tunes, TO reconstruct their desolated homes,
and to place their States once again on the
road to prosperity and happiness. He SEES
in the solid vote of the blacks prospect
OF securing the Southern States for
the administrator of which be is
member, aud 50 he tells the ne
croes of North Carolina that n must
still be war b-tween them and their white
fellow citizens; aud he pourS into their cred
ulCus ears the insidiOus poisonof suspicion.
If YOU are wise, be says in substance to the
black crowd lie harangues, you will never
trust your liberties and immunities to your
old masters, for whenever they obtain the
poWer, if they cannot destroy the former
THY will deny you the latter. Their pro-
LESSONS may be fair, but their hearts are
false, and if You would protect yourselves
your cry must be, no peace with such OPP
preSsors. Clasp hands across the bloody
chasm? No; rather fill it up with more
blood and with the corpses of mer, women
and children whose white skins point them
out as your natural enemies. We do
Secretary Boutwell, no injustice in this in
tFrpreiation of his unfortunate speech. 1t
will bear no other. His address is an eff
fort to excite the worst passions of an ig-
noran' and violent people; to array race
against race; to persuade the negroes that
the white Democrats of the South are their
mortal enemies; to revive the deadly ami
Inosities of slavery when slavery itself has
persisted; to open afresh the wounds made
by the war when the country is at peace.
If tie language used by the Secretary is
less brutal and coarse than the ideas it con-
veys, the talent displayed in his rhetoric
only renders the oflense against humanity
the more objectionable.