The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1874-03-05
JACKSON, Miss, April 18th, 1867.

JACKSON, Miss. April 18th, 1867.
Hon. ". L. SHARKEY.
DEAR SIR have had the privilege of
perusing your letter of the 10th to
Judge j. w. r., which L will take the
precautiOn to retain copy OF. By au-
thorizing its contents to be ''read" and
passed from mouth to mouth and thus
making Rumor, with her exaggerating
tongue, the medium of its publication,
you have placed those of us whom you
have censured, at disadvantage.
While | am content to bide events, and
trust to time for the vindication of our
you a word of explanation and pre-
test, and of warning you that in prompt
ing our people to join issue with the
National authority on the question of
Reconstruction, you are doing them ire
parable injury
You have erred egregiously in saying
E. Barksdale" are organizing a "Rad-
zeal party" in Mississippi. On the con-
trary, nothing will prevent the formation
of Radical party here, and victo-
rious one at that, but the adoption of
the course We are advising the people to
take, viz, to accept without delay, the
terms of Reconstruction prescribed by
Congress. If we oppose reconstruction
and the bestOwment of political privi-
leges upon the negroes, they will take
shelter under the leadership of strangers
who, 1 fear, will seize the opportunity
to organize them for the oppression
of the whites You will then havea
Radical party" sure enough, to
rule over you and yours; and all, in
consequence of the perverseness of blind
leaders of the blind.
am not delivering law lectures"
as you imagine; but | do know enough
law to remember that in the Rhode Is
land case when the question aros whether
the Charter government or the Dorr
revolutionists were the legitimate au-
thority of the State, the Supreme Court
declared that the decision of issues of
that kind appertained to the political de-
partment Ofthe government, and must de-
volve upon Congress and not upon Courts
that while your ''quiddits and quilts
and cases and tenures" and 'injunctions"
and other legal tricks, may kindle de-
lusive hopes in the bosoms of the
people and ensnare them into a war
with Congress to their own undoing, it
will not defeat Reconstruction. The
Courts will follow Congress. In addition,
| have said that in popular government
the will of the Nation is a law
which overides all other authority; that
its will in the matter of Reconstruction |
has been pronounced too plainly to be |
and that it is madness
for the South in her PROSTATE condition,
to defy it. All this may not be good |
claw" but it is good common sense.
The fate of your injunction" on which
30 much has been pledged to the people,
and on which 80 much is being staked by
them on your promises will determine
who is right.
You have been on the bench and ought to
know to what influences Courts are sub
Jet, but really cannot think that any
thing poor, despised, prescribed and un-
Wiley Harris and E. Barksdale" could
'ay to their fellow sufferers here, would
weigh feather with the Supreme Court
If the United States 1t is possible that
lsthe Court, like all elseearthly, is mortal,
having the infrmity of other mortal things.
: not Indifferent to theirreversible man
late of the ruling power of the Nation In
his matter of recognizing the Southern
states and giving suffrage to the blacks:
nd II 90, 20 mich the worse for your
injunction which il to place sfittIe
dississippi" ahead-in the Courtsl God |
rant Ghs may not wind up At the foot 1