Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1872-02-28

NOO, aPpOhA0Ou W 4ldulIc AnhObHCSO@iNA~-
of affairs in the late insurectiOnary States"
have been true 10 their Radical instincts, !
and have presented to Congress a report
which is simply an electioneering document.
They have carried with them in their in
vestigation the bitter, vindicitve feeling
which the larger portion Of the leaders of
their party have exhibited toward the white
people Of the South since the close of the
war. A single extract will show how they
try TO rekindle this prejudice, which, they
seem to fear, is dying out among the people
Of the North; and furthermore, to justify |
the Ku-Klux laws, the use of the military,
and the continuance of the suspension of
the writ of habeas corpus. They say:
"The newly made voters of the South at
the close of the war, il is testified, were
kindly disposed toward their former mas !
tiers. The feeling between them grew, and |
vet seems to be one of confidence in all |
other than their political relations. The |
refusal of their former masters to partici- |
pate inf political reconstruction necessarily |
left the negroes to be influenced by Others. |
entered it with honest intentions to do their |
duty, but were untitled for its discharge. |
Through their instTumentality- many I'M
worthy white men, having obtained their !
confidence, also procured public positions.
In legislative bodies this mixture of igno-
rant but honest men with better educated
knaves, gave better opportunity for cor
ruption, and this opportunity has developed
a state of Generalization on this subject
which may and does account for many of
the wrongs Of whichthe people justly COM
plain"
This is perhaps ingenious, but the at
tempt to fasten upon the white people OF
the South the fault of the misgovernmentt to
which they have been subjected under Ra-
deal carpet-bag rule is not justified by his
tory. The very men who submitted to any
demand of the triumphant faction in Con-
| gress, and altered their State laws in con-
formity to the will of those who had the
power to dictate terms of peace, but who
were subsequently DISTINGUISHED and prohi-
bited from holding Office, are the men who,
| in the report, are charged with obstinately
refusing to participate in political reconstruc-'
ton" 1t is curious also to note with what a
quiet, assured air, as if they were telling an
indisputable, truth, the majority assert that
the freed negroes were deliberately tossed
into the arms Of unworthy white men
Northern capet-baggers-by their old mas
tiers and that the latter are therefore respon-
sible for the manner in which they have
been plundered, and are likewise amenable
to punishment for the efforts which some
of them have made to protect themselves
by acts which, however lawless they may
have been, find some palliatiOn at
least from the circumstances in which
they were placed. These assertions Of
he majority of the committee MAIDEN the
face Of the fact, known and recognized Of
all honest men, that events were so shaped
that themen ofwhom complaint is now made
were effectually deprived of participation
in passing the laws by which they were to
be governed. They would have been only
too glad to have adopted the course sug-
gested by the majority of the committee,
but the Radicals in the early days Of recon-
struction prevented them from doing SO by
test oaths and Acknowledgement laws. The
minority of the committee make a fitting
answer to the conclusions reached by the
Radical majority, when they say:
"History, till now, gives no account of 3
cOHqueror so cruel as to place his vanqalsh-
ed foes under the dominion of their former
slaves. That 1rds reSerred for the Radical
= rulers IN this great Republic. To-day, in
South Carolirl2 Taxas and Arkansas. -Lapd
elsewhere,) the emalcpated slave regl-
ments paraded in State or Federal uniform,
armed cap-a-pie with the most approved
2 weapons, paid for by taxation imposed on
their former masters; while the white men
are denied the right 10 bear arms or to Or
j ganise, even militia, for the protection Of
} their homes, their property, or the persons
p of their wives and their children.
"When the testimony taken before us is
analysed, and the ignorance and degrade
= tion of the Southern negro is understood
D when, as Gen Grant shows, in his report
in December, 1865, they believed that the
property of their former master Of right be-
lOnged to them, and was not entitled to
any protection; when, as all the testimony
S shows, the carpet baggers, bureau agents
+ and Loyal Leaguers who went to these
States made the wrong the negroes had suf
fered, and the right they had to take what
ever they pleased of the property they hat
? labOred to acquire for their masters the
theme of their harangues; when in secret
sworn associations, hatred Of the white
race of tAe South was instilled into the
= minds Of these ignorant people by every
= art and vile that bad men could devise
, when the negroes were formed into military
organizations, and the white people Of these
: States were denied the use of arms; when
the great mass of the most intelligent whites
were DISTINGUISHED, and the ballot was
put into the hands of the negro by the
Government at Washington; when every
promise that was made and every law
= enacted were broken and disre.
, garded by the Federal authorities whenever
it suited their purposes to do so; when
even the courts were closed and the Federal
officers--whO were made by Congress abso.
Lutte rulers and dispensers of what they call
ed iustice-ignored, insulted and trampled
, upon the rights Of the ostracised and dis
frauchised white man, while the Official
: pandeIed to the enfranchised negro, on
whose vote he relied TO obtain a seat ii
Congress, or 20 be made Governor, or other
high official in the state over which he rul.
ed in short, when that people saw that
, they had no rights which were respected, nc
, protection from insult, no security for theil
wives and little ones, and that what little
they had saved from the ravages ofwar was
being confiscated by taxation and rendered
l valueless by the debts for which men who
owned nothing had pledged it, and wher
they saw that all their complaints and re-
monsrances, however honestly and hHmbly
presented to Congress, were either wholly
/ disregarded or regarded as evidence of re-
bellious and Unsubdued spirit, many ofthen
took the law into their own hands and die
deeds of violence which we neither justify
l nor excuse. There is, however, this to say
5 that situated and circumstanced as they
we're, unable, as the evidence shows, Il
! keep anything that could be carried away
2 their hogs, sheep, poultry, corn-indeeC
l every portable thing-being preyed upon a!
!. though the owner had no right or inter
70 est in it, and when the guilty negro was ar
~ r., L