The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1874-07-09
The Southern States.

Has the government policy inits treatment
of the reconstructed States? Has it had 8
policy since the close of the war? If it has
one, and has had one, is it not about time it
was changed? If the present condition of
these is in any respect the fruit of the policy,
have we not had enough of it7 Men of COM
mon sense and common honesty learn by expe-
rence, and try to realize in practice what they
learn.
The Confederate States, or those which called
themselves such during the civil war, have
passed through political, social, and industri..
al revolution. They were left at the close of
the war utterly poor, with their industrial for
ces and machinery destroyed with new po-
litical element to be assimiated or amalgama-
ted, their political institutions to be reconstruc-
ted, and their old political relations to the
Union to be renewed They needed, in this
tremendous emergency, the wisest and most
considerate 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 followed the war, they
have received only just retribution. We
fought for the Union, and the establishment
of the old relations and the moment the mil
itary power of the Confederacy was crushed it
was the business Of our government, in the
kindcst, frmest, most sympathetic, and most
generous way, to reclaim their affectlonate 10y
alty. 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 we'll known through
out 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, pltted
against the resident whites, on whose intelli-
gence and loyalty the future welfare OF those
States depends. In others, a rebellion against
this state of things has taken place, which
drives two-thirds of the black vote from the
polls Taxes are heavy, and are often absorbed
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 themselves
that the general government does not and will
not protect them, and that nothing but death
or voluntary exile will give them relief.
To say that the national government cannot
constitutionally help this state of things, is to
acknowledge that the doctrine of State rights,
in whose name, and by whose authority the
Southern States strove to throw of the national
rule, is a sound one. The national govern
ment can help it, and ought to have helped II
long ago.
What are the petty rascalities of two OF three
contractors, over which we make such ado, by
the side of the terrible condition of these
States2 What significance has the mal-admin.
istration of the revenue laws by the side of
whole peoples, ground into the earth by power
ty, and torn by civil dissensions? We strain
at gnat and swallow camels by the caravan.
Oh, for a man, or body of men who will
"take the responsibility If the old Dutch
men, of Pennsylvania, who are said TO vote at
every Presidential election for Gen. Jackson,
are simply loyal to an idea, we have profound
respect for their instincts and for their ignor-
ance. They are right. He is the kind of man
we want in every department of Federal power.
DR.. j. G. Holland, IN Scribner's for July.