Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1873-02-25

to lay the grievances Of their people before
him, just as he is represented to have
talked to this Virginia gentleman. he has
oeen good at keeping ''the word of promise
to our ear, and breaking it to our hope"
But be may change his tactics now, and do
something for the plundered and ruined
South. Let us hope that when he comes
to look upon the devastation which the
hordes of carpet baggers have wrought in
all the Southern States where they have
secured a foothold, that he will use the in
fIuence of the great office he fills to restore
to this people the rights Of which they have
been deprived-.hat he will seek to have
them recognised and Treated as the equals
in the Union of their Northern brethren.
/ The New York Tribune ventures the
opinion that t. appearance of President
Grant in the South win be followed with
good results, and expresses the "hope that
the people of the South will meet this cor
dial and friendly advance In the spirit in
which it is meant" adding that "nothing
can be gained by any exhibition of GOODNESS
or hostility to the Administration" The
Tribune need have no fear that the people
of the South will not treat Gen. Grant with
the courtesy due to his position. More
than this: they will treat him with the old
fashioned Southern hospitality, which was
and still lie so marked Characteristic Of
Southern gentlemen. If Gen. Grant could
be won to the Southern people by kindly
manners and unstinted hospitality, his Rad
ical friends, who are still fighting the war
over, ought not to let him take
his contemplated Southern tour.
Whatever may be Gen. Grants
intention, he will be received and well
coined by the Southern people with that
chivalrous courtesy which has ever been
their distinguishing characteristic. We
doubt whether the Southern people, judg-
ing of the future by the past, will hope for
much from this visit of Gen. Grant, but
that will not cause them to abste one jot Or
title of the cordial welcome they will ex-
tend him, and the true Southern hospitality
with which they treat him wherever he may
go. If their treatment, not merely civil,
but that kind which speaks from the heart
to the heart, will cause him to use the in
1uencs of his exalted position TO secure the
complete pacifcation Of the country and the
restoration of the former unity Of interest
and feeling among the States, he viii re-
turn to Washington the most enthusiastic
Union restorer the country has yet known.
The Tribune says: CATER the war he
made tour of observation in the South,
the result of which he embodied in a report
SO cordially friendly as to subject him to
severe animadversion from Republican
sources. We believe that the instances
since then where his public acts have given
the Southern people reason to complain
have been the result not of any unfriendly
feeling, but of misapprehension of law or
fact" For the nonce, We are will
ling to accept the Tribme's explanation of
Grants attitude towards the South, now
that be is about to take upon himself s task
wherein he will have to show his tue
character be is the friend of the
South and the whole Union, whether he is
in favor of restoration of that unity and
fraternal feeling which alone can make US
one people, or whether he will still lend
willing ear to those "architects of ruin"
who have been persistent in their misrep-
resentations CT the people of this section.
By bis acts will we now Judge him, and by
these must he stand or fall.