The New Orleans bulletin. [volume] (New Orleans [La.]) 1874-1876, 1874-06-28
THE SOUTHERN STATES.
[From Scrihner for Jnly.l

Has the Government a policy i'll its treat
ment of the reconstructed States? Has it had
a policy since the close of the war? If it has
one, and has had one, is it not about time 1t
were changed? If the present condition OF
these States is in any respect the fruit of that
policy, have we not had enough of it? Men
of common sense and common honesty learn
by experience, and try to realize in practice
what they learn
The Confederate States, or those which
called themselves such during the civil war,
passed through a political, social, and indus
trial revolution. They were left at the close of
the war utterly poor, with their industrial
forces and machinery destroyed, with new
! political element to be assimilated or amalg ga
mated, their political institutions to be recon-
structed, and their old political relations to the
| Union to be renewed. They needed, in this
tremendous emergency, the wisest and most
:onsiderate treatment. We have nothing to
do with the question whether they had sinned
and deserved punishment We are not
called upon to decide whether, in
the great disasters and trials that have
foil, wed the war, they have received only a
Just retribution. We claimed that they be-
longed to the Union. We fought for the
Unior and the re-establishment of the old
relatio = and the moment the military power
OF the Sontederacy was crushed, 1t was the
business of our Government in the kindest,
tirmest, most sympathetic and most generous
way, to reclaim their affectionate loyalty.
Has the Government done it ? Has it tried to
do it? South Carolina Louisiana, Texas and
Arkansas have an answer to the question,
which is pretty well known throughout the
Union.
In some of the Southern States a condition
approaching absolute anarchy exists. Carpet
baggers, leading host of black and ignorant
men, are, in two or three of these pitted
against the resident whites, on whose intelli-
gence and loyalty the future welfare OF those
States depends. In others, rebellion against
this state of things has taken place which
drives two-thirls of the black vote from the
polls. Taxes are heavy, and are too often alb
sorbed by the corrupt schemes of politicians
Men are not only discouraged, but are full of
the bitterness that comes from oppression
They feel that they are wronged, that they
have no future, that they cannot protect them
selves, that the General Government does not
and will not protect them, and that nothing
but death OF voluntary exile will give them
relief
To say that the National Government can
not constitutonally help this state of things
is to acknowledge that the doctrine of State
rights, i'll whose name, and by whose author
ity, the Southern States strove to throw off the
national rule is a sound one. The National
Government can help it, and ought to have
helped it long ago By the authority Of
constitution which guarantees republican
form Of government to every State, it could
have protected the ballot-boxes of every
State, and prevented mob from usurping
that form OF government. A mob is not
republican form Of government. No gov
eminent is republican, even in its form,
whose ballot-box is not accessible to
every voter, and is not preserved invioable
from all corruption. No government is
republican, even in form, that is controlled
by mercenary aliens. There are half a dozen
States whose governments have ceased to be
Republican, even in form, when we come
down to anything like strict definition OF the
phrase. And these States, or some OF them,
have appealed to the President, again and
again, tor help. to decide the questions which
their conflicts have involved, and appealed in
vain. Why, any policy that would involve a
decision would be better than none. Are these
States to be left forever to internecine strifes
Give them military government until they
are ready to govern themselves tremendously.
They would thrive and be happy under such
a government, because they would be pro-
tected. They can have no prosperity I'M
til they are, politically, at rest. Does
any one doubt, in the light which the present
state Of things throws upon the question, that
military government, in half dozen States
that might be mentioned, would have saved
those States from untold miseries, and add
vanced them intellectually further towards a
sound reconstruction than they stand to-day !?
Is our national Government nothing? Is our
Union without civil power? If it cannot con-
troll these State strifes, that, in one State, at
least, have gone on to bloodshed, We are at a
loss to know of what particular use it is, and
we cannot blame the people of the South for
regarding it with a sentiment more bitter than
contempt.
What are the petty rascaGties of two or
three contractors over which we make SO
much ado, by the side of the terrible condi-
ton of these States? What significance has
the maladministration of the revenue laws by !
the side Of whole peoples ground into the
earth by poverty and torn by civil dissentions?
We strain at gnats and swallow camels by the |
caravan. Oh for man, or a body of men,
who will 'take the responsibility If the
old Dutchmen of Pennsylvania, who are said
to vote at every election for Gen. jackson, are
simply loyal to an idea, We have profound |
respect for their instincts and their ignorance |
They are right. He is the kind Of man We
want in every department of Federal power.
Bills Which Congress Failed to Pass.
A clerk Of the Senate reached the House
with the bills for the reduction of army pay
masters from sixty to fifty, and to authorize
the coinage Of twenty-cent silver pieces, Just