New-York tribune., 1874-10-21
THE CHATTANOOGA CONTENTION

Our correspondence from Chattanooga ex-
plains some things about the recent COnven-
tion which have not hitherto been understood
The meeting was supposed to have been called
in the interest of the third term schemers, and
vet it treated the project only as the New
York Convention treated it, with stOlid but
significant silence. 1t was to fire the Northern
heart with stories of intimidation and out
rage, for effect upon the October and NOvem-
Der elections, and yet it has adjourned with
out adding one murder or a solitary masked
horseman to the unfortunate catalogue
of the Hon. Charles Hays, and has
postponed the waving of the bloody
shirt until the assembling of Con-
gress. When Chief-Justice Poker Jack of
Arkansas exclaimed, "What have we come
"here for, anyhow ~ he was in sort of be-
wilderment very much like that which fell
upon the country at large after the Conven-
ton adjourned One of the organs of the Ad-
ministration has kindly attempted to explain
things on the theory that Messrs. Spencer,
Mcclure, Clayton, Brooks, Pnchback, Dorsey,
jeff. Long. and the rest, merely came together
in friendly way to talk over the
statistics of "SOuthern illiteracy," resolv-
ing themselves, SO to speak, into kind OF
educational conference, and "hOping only to
receive benefit at the hands of those who
"sympathize with education" This explana-
ton has the merit of novelty, but will per-
haps provoke the jeers of the unregenerate.
But if the Convention was afraid to make
any public declaration on the third term or
the Civil Rights bill, unprepared with out
rages, and too ignorant to talk about educa-
ton, it did nevertheless accomplish something.
1t welded into O compact organization the
Southern Radical party which has hitherto
pursued its schemes of plunder and fraud by
independent agencies in each separate State,
and it put forth distinct statement of what
the carpet-bag party requires of Congress and
the Federal Administration as the price OF its
politcal allegiance. That requirement is an
extension of the system of legislation repre-
seuted thus far by the Ku-Klux and Enforce
ment laws, so that there shall be no difficulty
hereafter in sending Federal marshals, with
posse of troops, into any district OF the South
to keep the peace, to enforce all the laws, to
arrest brawlers, criminals, vagabonds of every
variety, and to put troublesome politicians out
of the way on genuine or fictitious charges.
In word, the Chattanooga Convention de-
manded that the plan OF Federal interference
which wrought such stupendOus injustice at
New-Orleans should be extended to every
Southern community, and made part of the
regular Republican platform. Under such a
policy State governments would become mere
organizations for the handling and distribu-
ton of the public money, while the work of
oorernment would be monopolized by the CEN
trail authority at Washington
1t is we'll that the Chattanooga patriots have
placed in this clear light the object towards
which they are striving. 1t means neither
more nor less than revolution in the Amer
lean theories of government and more
thorough system of Capitalization than any
party has ever dreamed Of heretofore. But
the next Congress will probably not be in a
mood to favor the carpet baggers' proposals.