The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1874-07-02

were lad IN ruin This condition of
things still exists with undated rigor in
those Southern States. For when. by
/ your reconstruction measures, YOU deter
mined to provide civil governments
for these States, the machinery by which
these men carried their power over into
/ those civil governments was simple and
etfectual. Under your policy generally
II repeat, my purpose to-day j. not ar
raignment-under that policy YOU Olsen.
franchised large portion of the white
people of the Southern State. The
registration laws and the election laws in
the hands of these men kept a still
larger proportion away.
But there was an agency more potent
STILL
By persistent misrepresentation ma
| jority in Congress was made 10 believe
that the presence of the United States
Army would be necessary not merely to
put these governments in force, but to
keep them in operation and to keep them
| from being snatched away and work
ed to the oppression and ruin of the
black race and the few loyal men who
were attempting to protect their rights.
Thus was introduced into those so-called
| reconstructed civil governments the Fed
eral military as an operative and pre-
dominent principle. Thus, with quick,
sudden, and violent hand, these men
tore the two races asunder and hurled
one IN violent antagonism upon the other;
and to this day the negro vote, massed
into an organization hostile to the whites,
is an instrument Of absolute power in the
! hands of these men. These governments
are in external form civil, but they are
in their essential principle military.
| They are called local governments, but
in reality they are Federal executive
agencies. Not one of them emanates
from the uncontrolled will Of the people,
white or black not one which rests upon
the elective principle in its purity. They
have been aptly styled by IA distinguish
ed statesman and jurist in Mississippi
| (Hon. w, 2. Harris, State governments
without States, without popular constitu-
encies. For they are as completely
isolated from the traditions, the feelings,
the interests, and the free sufrages of
the people, white and black, as if they
were outside the limits of those States.
Where is the public sentiment which
guides and enlightens those to whom are
cOnfded the conduct Of public affairs
Where is the moral judgment Of a vir-
| tuous people to which they are amenable?
Where is the moral Indignation which
falls like the scathing lightning upon
the delinquent or guilty public officer?
Sir, that class and race in which reside
these great moral agencies are Frustrated;
their interests, their prosperity leopard
lied, their protests unheeded, and every
murmur of discomfort and every effort to
throw off their expressions misrepresent-
ed here as originating i'll the spirit which
inaugurated the rebellion. Sir, the
statement that these southern govern
ments have no popular constituencies is
true, but they nevertheless have con
stituency to whom they bear a response
biIity memorable as death 1t is limited
to the one point of keeping the State
true and faithful to the Administration
all else is boundless license. That con
stituency is here in Washington It's
Aeart I.uIsatas in the White House. There
Is its Intelligence and there is its iron
will. | do not eXaggerate when l say
that every one of these governments
depend, every moment of their existence,
upon the will Of the President That
will makes and unmakes them. \
short proclamation backed by one com
pany determines who is to be governor
of Arkansas. \ telegram settles the
civil magistry Of Texas. \ brief order
to a General in New Orleans wrests
State government from the people Of
Louisiana and vests its control in the
creatures of the Administration. Sir,
even conceding that the decision in one
or two of these cases accorded with the
rights Of the people, there stands the
startling fact that all the rights, peace,
and security Of those people hang upon
the precarious tenure Of one mans will
or caprice. Is it wonderful that beneath
the chill shadow of such a colossal despo-
tism the hope and enterprise and freedom
of that people should wither and die?
Mr.. Speaker, my heart has on more
than one occasion thrilled under the trlb-
utes of applause paid by northern mem
bers, who were Federal officers in the
war, to the valor of Southern troops and
the fortitude of Southern people during
the war Sir, if the conquest over self
is the greatest of all victories, then that
people deserve a still higher need Of
praise for their conduct in peace; for,
SIR, they have borne Unprecedented in
dignities, wrongs, expressions, and tor
ture with uneXampled patience and
dignity.
1t is true sir, that in a few districts,
for time tortured, goaded, and mad
dened, there were neighborhoods in which
misguided men rose up, sometimes dis
guised, and inflicted bloody retaliations.
And Ike all such blind vengeance, the
blow fell upon the Innocent instead OF
the guilty, and it served only to call down
upon the naked and deienceless heads Of
the people Of the South the wrath Of this
Government, which misunderstood the
outbreak, considering it as the indication
of the temper Of the Southern people
when it was only the indication Of their
agony These outbreaks that famed up
here and there, without concert and IL
regular in their succession, were but
signal-g guns Of distress. =
Sir, the condition of these States is
fully illustrated by the events of which
this contested election originated, and but
for which it never would have existed.
(Here follow some other details Of the
Louisiana case, which are omitted. ED.
CLARION.
Mr.. Speaker, the real issue pressing
upon us for decision did not originate with
this Louisiana case. 1t underlies our
political system, and in its resuI IS we are
to find solved the great question OF self
government; not for the South alone,
but for every part of the Union. | know,
sir, that in the blind fight Of factions the
great peril is lost sight Of in the presence
of the evils that more Immediately affect
the contestants. But there is that in