Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1874-09-03

CnltCu OIutCS OCuotC Wy TIC DOuAOSioeC
Legislature of Connecticut, announces
that he shall try with other honest SEN
ators to take away the Federal bayonets
from our brothers," meaning that he
shall try to commit the blacks in the
Southern States to the care of the
whites.
The situation IN the Southern States,
bad as it is, is mainly due to the Demo-
cratic party. 1t is not the result of the
policy of reconstruction, but of the con-
ditions and circumstances which shaped
reconstruction. If the Democratic party
had had absolute control of those States
from the surrender of Lee to this mo-
ment, the situation would have been diff
ferent but it would have been very
much more threatening, because injus-
tice would have been organized upon the
largest scale, and the monstrous colnse-
quences of such policy to the moral
tone of the whole country was shown in
the influence Of slavery for seventy years.
And yet at the end of the war had the
white leaders in the South shown them
selves equal to the situation, had they
learned of Gov. Orr and Gen. Longstreet,
they might have controlled affairs. But
they sulked and detied and protested, and
with the full sympathy of the Democratic
press in the Northern States, which
openly sneered at Gen. Longstreet and all
the late Confederates who showed signs
of sense and of statesmanlike instincts
Two courses were open to Congress:
one was to hold the recovered States in
a Territorial condition, the other was to
restore them as rapidly as possible to
| oil laf in M n
opinion scarcely permitted the first
course to be considered; and in adopting
the second Congress, instructed by the
overwhelming facts, having the COM
pletest evidence Of the revolving spirit
and intolerable policy with which the
colored population were to be treated if
the old Democratic ascendency in the
States should be suffered to reorganize
the governments at its pleasure, justly
took all the risks and made both races
equal citizens That great confusion,
much misgovernment, and injustice in
many ways have followed is not to be
denied; and the only consolation is that
that much and more permanent evil
must have resulted from adopting any
other course. If, by any unhappy
chance, the Democratic party could have
obtained possession of the Government,
the condition of the colored population
under black codes and vagrant laws, and
at the mercy of Democratic, eX-slave-
holding, State sovereignty legislation,
would have been only less shame to
humanity and civilization than the
slavery which under another form it
would have pcrpetuated.
Plainly the wise and patriotic, the
peaceful and necessary course for the
country to pursue is to maintain the
equal rights of all citizens in the fullest
and completest manner. This cannot
and will not be done by the Democratic
party. 1t declares, indeed, that the
rights of the colorcd citizens must be
protected. But it "abhors' an equality
which il calls social but which is not
social, being merely legal. 1t speaks
with Mr. Eaton of "our brothers" in the
Southern States meaning those who de-
nounce the colored race as barbarous.
It's animating spirit is one of hostility to
the policy that gave political and civil
rights to the colored people. 1t is ira
ditionally servie to the class that held
them in slavery; and while the Demo-
cratic party does not declare that the
colored race should be deprived of the
suffrage, the manner in which it would
| protect that right can be inferred from
every Democratic journal and orator
and convention, while Democratic con
tempt OF equal civil rights is openly and
vehemently expressed. But equality of
citizenship and the disappearance of
| prejudice against that equality are sim
ply impossible when the law stigmatiZes
any class of citizens.
This is the very time to insist that the
policy which has been adopted shall not
be abandoned To hesitate, to retreat,
to attempt to undo this work, would be
the height of folly. The Louisville
| CourterJoTRdI ought to know that its
threats of civil war and revolution are
| obsolete. There was time when they
had force and when timid " NORTH
tembled That time is gone forever,
and we wish that the Courier could I'M
derStand the unspeakablt contempt with
which the new generation, the new
North" hears a menace OF revolution
should the legal equality of American
! citizens be everywhere maintained,
! From the first moment in the first Con.
| gross that the question OF the colored
race in the Union challenged attention
| down 10 the present moment, every prop
oSition of amelioration of its condition
has been met with the same assertion,
that it was unnatural, monstrous, I'M
christian and would surely end in uni
versal massacre and anarchy The event
has uniformly belied the prediction; and
had the Democratic warning been needed
and the counsel followed, this nation
would have been absolutely subjugated
by the slave power, the power of injus-
tice and inhumanity,
Since, then, the Democratic party, al
! MANs Lle foe of euunl lihnrtN rnInrns 10