Knoxville weekly chronicle. [volume] (Knoxville, Tenn.) 1870-1875, 1872-10-16
A CHANCE FOR THE SOUTH.

We said in yesterdays CHRONICLE that
the election of Grant and Wilson-now as
sured beyond all doubt-meant peace,
prosperity and brighter future for all the
South We firmly believe it, and we are
glad to know that sensible non-partisan
citizens of Knoxville agree with us. We
have had assurances of such opinions from
them in the past twenty-four hours.
The South accepted Greeley as a pledge
of good faith from the North aud as
profier of econciliation-such is the pro-
fession her leaders make, AID such we be-
lieve was the honest feeling of many of
nate in the agents she chose to negotiate
with, Horace Greeley, Frank Blair. Nc
Clure, Hassaurek, ct id onlne genus, are
not fit representatives of the element the
South wants to negotiate with.
In supporting Greeley the Southern
Democrats have conceded a thousand
times more in self respect and in principle
than they would do to vote for Grant.
Greeley and his followers exacted this sac
rifice as proof that the South wanted "re-
conciliation.n Grant and the Republican
party never demanded such a humiliation,
such surrender of lifelong convictions.
All that Republican Administrator and
Congress asked of the South was that her
turbulent, lawless kuklux disband, and
protection to life and property and respect
for political opinions be freeley accorded
all men of every race and nativity. If
these conditions had been assured there
would have been no measure of Grants
administration to which the most captious
stickler for Southern honor could have
objected. Grant has never uttered an I'M
kind, harsh or uncharitable word of the
South. Grant has never maligned her
people or clamored for arbitrary legisla-
ton other than that required to insure
tranquility.
The South has more reason to hope for
a prosperous, fair and Just administration
from Grant than she could have had from
Greeley. His administration would have
been extreme and reactionary and in the
end have brought upon the South just the
evils following Johnson's revolutionary
policy.
To-day the South has its opportunity.
Grant has been its friend. His admins
tration has been fair and honorable, and
if there is any reconciliation necessary-if
the South wants a more cordial, fraternal
relation with the North, let her now
show it by accepting unanimously
Grants proffered friendship. We assure
her that it will never come through such
agencies as carried the recent elections in
Georgia. Until the citizen of Pennsylva-
mia shall have the same protection to his
person and property in Georgia that is Of
fered him in Iowa; until he can go to
Georgia and hold fearlessly and without
ostracism in business or society, the.politi-
cal convictions he honestly entertained,
and voted in his native State there is no
use talking of reconciliation or prosperity.
This is the meaning of Tuesdays election.
The North wants reconciliation even
more than the South but she
wants better evidences that the
Southern Democracy really want it,
than their abasement before Horace Gree
ley and his coalition, or their array of eX-
Confederate office-seekers in Tennessee or
their frauds and intimidations in Georgia.
The better class of Southern people, we
know, do not approve of such things, and
we therefore urge them now to prove this
by accepting Grant and his forthcoming
administration. which we know will be
better in every respect than his first.