Port Tobacco times, and Charles County advertiser. (Port Tobacco, Md.) 1845-1898, 1873-01-31
[From the London Standard, January 81
Radicalism at the South.

Almost every mail from America brings
us some new illustration of the miserable
condition of the Southern States under the
rule of the party which has acquired anoth-
er four years lease of power. Three facts
concerning three of the noblest States OF
the old Union, are noted in single paper
Louisiana has fallen into such utter an
archy that two several sets of State officers
and two separate legislatures have claimed
the obedience of the citizens of which it
would seem that neither party was even
decently respectable, and the quarrel was
altogether SO disreputable that though
the interests of the dominant faction at
Washington were involved, Gen. Grant
shrank at first from interference. Finally,
he decided to interpose in behalf of his
friends, and, supported by decree of the
Supreme Court Of the Union (Which seems
to have about as much to do with the mat
ter, under ancient constitutional rules, as
the Court of Queens Bench), he has order
ed the Federal troops to uphold the au-
thorlty of the party represented by the
negro Lieutenant Governor, Pinchbeck-
the party more odious of the two to the re-
spectacle people Of Louisiana. The Leg
islature of South Carolina, from which the
OooCh Sd1O41u al z CACluSOO3 CI1O WI
is composed of emancipated negroes and
Northern adventures, has elected as
United States Senator a member of the lat
ter class, who has secured his election by
wholesale purchase of the votes of negro
| legislators. A dispute arose thereupon,
and one of the supporters Of the beaten
| (negro) candidate expressed his disgust in
such very explicit language as led, in
American parlance, to "a free fight" around
the Speakers chair. Finally, the State of
Alabama, once among the most solvent and
best trusted in the Union, has purchased
and sold railway; and, having neither
paid the money for the first purchase nor
received that for the second, is exposed to
the humiliation of seeing the property
held and sold under an order in bankrupt
| cy. 1t is needless to say that no such things
could have happened under the old regime
Men like Warmoth and Pinchbeck would
never have been elected to govern the citi-
zens of Louisiana while the Southern
whites elected their own rulers. A Patter-
son would never have dreampt of offering
himselfas candidate for the seat once fill
ed by John G. Calhoun and if he had, his
election would have been as impossible as
the receipt of brides by the chivalry of the
Palmetto State. And in the old days Ala
bamas credit was as good as that of Can
ada; and her citizens were as justly proud
and jealous of her financial honor as En-
glishmen of the fiscal credit and good faith
of England. These wretched scenes are
part and parcel of the system of recon-
struction pursued by Radical Congress,
and applauded by English Liberals. The
first object of that system was revenge
the punishment and degradation of the
Southern ''rebels." The second was the
establishment of Radical ascendancy in
the South. The Radicals knew that at the
time of Lincolns election they were mi
nority in the North and after the war,
which had given them the ascendancy
there, was over, they might become a mi
nority again. But if they could appropri-
ate the franchises of the Southern States to
their creatures, and thus secure number
of "rotten boroughs," whose representa-
tives would be nominated by themselves,
without regard to the wishes of the peo
pie, they might contrive, though in pop
ular minority everywhere, to maintain
themselves in possession of the presidency,
the electoral college, and majority in
both branches of Congress. In order to et-
feet these ends, it was necessary to dis
franchise the real people of the south, and
create "bogus" people in their stead
The first was done by means of the penal
acts so lavishly passed by Congress. Amer
lea prides herself upon having shed no
blood on the scaffold. It is true that she
did not, as other conquering Governments
have done, take the lives of the chief of the
vanquished party. But it is equally true
that she has inflicted upon the conquered
people, as a whole, heavier punishment
than has ever been imposed by modern
conquerors upon large portion OF their
subjects. Wholesale disfranchisement,
subsection to the uleofenfranchised slaves,
and a system of government directed to
fleece the conquered country for the bene-
fit of its conquerors, have for seven or
eight years perpetuated the distress and
exasperated the bitter feelings left by a
war carried on with unusual feroclty. In
half the States of the South negro con-
stituency organized under the leadership
of adventures from the North has monop
olized political power; has excluded the
Southerners from all participation in the
control of their own affairs has taxed them
without allowing them representation, and
misspent the produce of those taxes in such
a manner as to add the keenest sense of hui
initiation to the bitterest consciousness of
injury. The honor of States as honorable
as Great Britain has been dragged in the
dust their debts have been left unpaid
while their people have been f1eeced their
rulers have filled their own pockets with
the produce of unlawful bonds issued at
an enormous discount: and while the ne
groes, who pay no taxes, have been kept
in good humor by liberal appropriations,
none of the real needs of the country have
been attended to.
The forces of the Federal Government
have been at the disposition of the pecula
tors and jobbers at the North who exploit
the negroes for their own benefit. All re-
monstrance has been vain. 1t is as easy as
it was useless to expose the injustice, to
foreshow the effects, ofsuch a policy. The
Radical majority in Congress cared Meth
er for the injustice nor the consequences,
so long as they proftted by the one and
the Southerners suffered by the other
They maintained and aggravated tariff
which compels the Southern planter or
farmer to pay twice the value of every
thing he buys-taxes him, that is, to the
full extent of his proper yearly outlay on
implements, clothing, everything necessary
to his cultivation, not for the benefit of the
Union, but for the personal advantage of
Northern traders and manufacturers
Show them that this is to ruin the South,
and they are all the better pleased; for hos
tility to the Southern people is the avowed
policy of their party. Gallant and high