The New York herald., 1874-07-27
The Third Term and the south.


Grants administration to deal with the ques-
tion Of reconstruction We have had an earnest
sentiment in behalf of what is called imperial
ism or desire on the part of the white men
in the Southern States to take shelter from the
rule of negroes and Northern adventurers
under the 1gis of strong, central, resolute
government. This government, it is thought,
General Grant would furnish should he be
elected by coordination of Southern seces-
sion democrats and office-holding republicans.
The democrats affect to regard the Civil
Rights bill as proposed, but not passed, as
the principal danger This bill proposed to
put upon the white man great insult, and
the spirit of opposition to it ''spread like a
fire on the prairie This is the manner in
which the Richmond Despatch explains the
sudden affection of Southern statesmen like
General Gordon, Governor Kemper and ex-
Governor Hebert for the third term. ''These
two things says this journal, combined
the Civil Rights bill, with its horrors and the
third tern, with its embarrassments to as
pirants-are doing wonders in the way of
changing the political stakes and altering the
course of politicians" The Petersburg Hnder
and Appeal, one of the oldest and most orig
inal of the Southern journals assails the idea
with some eagerness. To take up Grant for
the third term would be to set the seal of Vir-
ginia's approval upon his past, and we are
reminded that in spite of Grant. his party and
his administration, Virginia effected her deliv-
erance from negro rule, and that to support
n, L. IL IL.
party and rend the white organization into a
thousand fragments" ''it would be to put
the locks of our Samson under the shears of
Delilah" ''to turn from the rainbow and
court the thunderbolt.
The Atlanta Constitution shares this opinion,
and reminds the South that the hands of
Grant are equally imbued with the crimes
that have devastated the South through radi-
cal State dynasties, that have bankrupted the
people and filed our land with unnumbered
woes" This sentiment finds expression in
other Southern journals, one of them, the
Vicksburg Herald, approaching the discussion
in hysterical frame of mind. This disturbed
and unhappy editor has been informed that
negro woman on the streets of Vicksburg
made remark that ''if our men will clean
out the democrats we can take care of the
white women" This remark is deemed i'm
portant enough to be communicated to the
people in leading editorial, and the editor
asks, SIS there white man with red blood in
his veins who, after reading this atrocious
threat of the murder of our wives and children,
will not promptly advance to the color line :? -"
In other words there is an element of unwise,
Incorporate and foolish men, of which this
agitated editor is the type, which will not per-
NIT any party divisions in the South that do
not appeal to the darkest and saddest passions
of the war. We might point to the fact that
there are editors who claim to succeed Richie
and Daniel and Tyler and Rhett and Kendall
in educating the public opinion of the South,
who do not blush to make the gossip of an
idle negro wench deep in her cups no doubt,
the text for an appeal to white men to ''advance
to the line." Another editor who educates
public opinion from the Charlottesville Chron.
icle is in calmer frame of mind, but at the
same time he sees imperialism looming up,
and he would not be surprised to find many
advocates for it, especially in the down
trodden and humiliated South" For, says
supremacy of the white race in the South il
we are to be kept forever in political serfdom,
under the grinding oppression of the ignorant
and corrupt class that now constitute the gov
erning power in most of the Southern States !;
if we are to witness the repeated occurrence of
! a hou
publican institutions and stained the soil of
some of our sister States with fraternal blood
if we have nothing to hope for but confusion
and strife and anarchy, our substance con-
sumed by crushing taxation and our life blood
sucked by political adventurers-then it is not
to be wondered at if rejecting men grow hope
less and doubtful of the success of popular
government and imagine that their fortunes
would be improved and their safety better
secured under the protection of an imperial
sceptre.'
Here then we have all shades of opinion
from the South Our first impression is one
of surprise that there should be any Southern
journalist who would have the least conf
dence in Grant doing in his third term what
he has not ever attempted to do during his
two terms The President seems to have been
alarmed at the attempts of Mr.. johnson to
settle reconstruction, and to have avoided it
as political morass. That subject he would
leave to time and devote himself to the
finances and the annexation Of territory
But the finances are in worse condition
than when he became President, annexation
is dead, and reconstruction has become a
long-standing liberation, affecting the national
life and bringing scandal and disease upon
the country. The error the President made
was in supposing that reconstruction could
be postponed to any issue, no matter how i'm
, portant that reconstruction could be severed