New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1874-04-09


Grant four years more of power, through the
lavish use of money. The end, the means,
and the motive were equally indcfensible.
The result is only what might have been ex-
pected. |
OUACK REMEDIES FOR MISGOVERNMENT
The City of Petersburg, Virginia, is in
bad plight. The municipal government has
been for several years in the hands OF the de-
signing and corrupt leaders of ignorant men,
and has been administered for the sole par
pose of insuring to those in Office the con-
tinued support of the lowest class in the
community. The result is that the once busy
streets of the city have become grass-grOwn
and almost deserted; business is on
a steady decline active men seek other
fields of labor; Northern capital finds
its way to Richmond, Norfolk, and Lynchburg
rather than to Petersburg; the only immigra-
ton is from the rural districts, whence shift
less negroes come to find in Petersburg
home of ideness, and to feed upon the drop
pings from the public crib In Their despair
the taxpayers appealed to the Legislature OF
the State for relief 1t was given In the form
of new charter, designed to place the mu-
nicipal government i'll the hands of intelligent
and respectable men. But the measure of
relief had a fatal defect, i'll that it deprived
the people of the right TO choose their own
officers. The appointing power was given to
Board of Commissioners, who were to be
the creatures of the Legislature. Fortunately
Gov. Kemper had the pluck to veto
the charter, at the risk of losing
the support of the party by whose
sufirages he had been elected For this action
ne was violently assaulted in public and in
private by some who had been his most cher
ished political friends. He was accused OF
Radlcalism and of all else that is offensive to
the old-fashioned Virginian. 1t was charged
on the floor of the Legislature and by the
press that the veto was the result of IA corrupt
bargain between Grant and Kemper, by which
the State was to be turned over to the Rcpub-
lican party. In Petersburg the Governor was
branded as traitor, and an Infatuated crowd
burned him in efiigy. But a reaction soon
came. The sober second thought of the Sen
ate sustained the veto; the press returned to
sense of duty; and to-day Petersburg alone,
of all Virginia constituencies continues to
abuse a Governor who defied his party to do
right.
We cite this case flor the benefit Of South
Carolina, who now comes before Congress with
the cry of Petersburg. Hers is indeed pitiful
story. Who does not know how in that State
the children of the fathers who ate sour
grapes have had their teeth set on edge? The
fact that a committee of gentlemen represent
ing the aristocracy of Old Families and State
Rights is now in Washington duplicating for
redress by the interference of the General
Government, tells the whole sad story of OPP
preston and humiliation. 1t is not spectacle
that should crafty anybody. We believe
every count in their Indictment of the negro
majority in South Carolina can be sustained.
No American commonwealth ever suffered
more from the domination of de-
pravity and ignorance. The outlook
seems hopeless. How a State thus afflicted
may be restored to a healthy condition is
question demanding the serious consideration
of statesmen. We are not surprised to find
the sufferers here as in Petersburg, proposing
quack remedies for the disease but with all
sympathy and concern for the patient it is
the duty of the wise physician TO deny the
request.
The proposition of the South Carolina
memorialsts as expressed by individual mem
bers is that the Reconstruction acts be 40
amended as to wrest the State from the hands
of the negro majority now in power, and place
it under the control OF the taxpayers and
the educated class. 1t is always desir-
able that intelligence and responsibility
shall rule; but it is not right that even this
good end should be accomplished by over
riding the popular will by legislative inter
ference in the case of a city, or Congressional
interference in the case of State. No such
dangerous precedent should be set, even for a
good purpose and if such precedent
already exists, it should not be followed IL
this plan is adopted in South Carolina or Vir-
ginia, it would seem to justify not a few of
the political crimes which have made the
Republican party, as 1t exists in some other
Southern States, odious in the eyes of the
world. The same idea, but with a base end.
was carried out in Florida where the whites
have been kept under by the appointment of
nearly all officers, except cOnstables and
members of the Legislature, by the Governor.
instead of allowing the people to choose their
own rulers. IL will not do. Special legsla-
ton is not the proper remedy for political
wrongs If the distressed people of South
Carolina ask "What, then, shall we do ~ we
answer, in the language of Gov. kemper, that
there can be no security for liberty but in