National Republican. (Washington City (D.C.)) 1872-1888, 1874-09-07
THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE
GOTTH

SOUTH
The New York Herald last Friday printed
nearly two cclumns OF editorial on the con-
ditiOn of the South the keynote of which
was that tb , North, in its action towards
the South since the close of the war, has
not treated that section fairly, and that "a
q national convention should be called to
e consider the war, It's causes, consequences
d" and results, and how best the Union can
adjust itself to the new and strange con-
" ditiOn it has left US.
The article in question is a curious jun
BILE of fact and fiction. The writer endeav-
OTIS to draw an illustration of some kind or
another from almost every country and
every age in the world. AllusiOns TO Po-
land, the fair county of Wcstmeath, in the
Green Isle, the Established Church in Great
Britain, to Cromwell, Charles the First,
the Paris Commune, and Napoleon the
Great, TO Germany, the BisCayan provinces
and Espartero jOstlc one another in a way
that is truly wonderful. Events which
have no earthly bearing, one upon the
other, or upon the same subject under con-
sideratiOn, are tortured and twisted to
strengthen an argument which lacks the
first essential of strength-fOundation in
fact The premises, if there are any prem
ises TO the article in question, are that the
present condition of affairs in South
Carolina, Mississippi and other Southern
States, show that, instead Of an honest
" measure of generous and pacific recon
g structiOn, we have reduced the con-
"quered States of the South into the con-
" diuon of Poland and Ireland. No known
{" section of conquered territory, not the
" most lawless districts of Westmeath, nor
" the most impatient communes in Alsace,
g are as disturbed as many of the Southern
q States This cannot be attributed to the
q pressure of war; for the war is over, and
q the harvests have long since embodied with
g living verdure the bloody fields" Then
to what can it be attributed? To harsh
measures imposed upon the conquered
territory? When the war closed the vic
torious commander Of the armies Of the
North told the defeated soldiers of Missis-
sippi, South Carolina and Virginia to stack
their arms, 90 to theiI respective homes,
obey the laVs, and take their horses with
them for the fall pIOwing. What Northern
prisons were filed? What executions took
place? What trials for treason followed?
What ransoms were eXacted? What sure
ties were demanded for the future? What
lands were ConfsCated and divided among
the cCnquerors? In the face of all this,
what supcrlative nonsense to talk about
Poland and AlsaCe and the county of West
meath.
Again, the Herald says the great mistake
that was made was that we treated slavery
as a crime instead of an institution: and
then we have touching allusion to the
gentlemen who by their genius and valor
ruled the councils of the nation for so many
years. 1t seems to us that the converse of
this proposition would be the more correct
way Of accounting for many of the evils of
the past and of the present, viz: the great
mistake the gentlemen whose genius and
ValOr ruled US for so long a time made was
in T6ItiR7 freedom as a crime and no. as
an institution in these United States. Be
cause they so thought and believed we had
the stormy and disgraceful scenes which
shocked the Countrywide Kansas war, the
attempt to strike down free speech in the
National Legislature, the denial of ths right
OF petition, the Fugitive Slave Act, the
announcement Of the monstrous doctrine
that black man had no rights which q
white man was bound to respect-beforC
treason finally eliminated in the firing upon
the flag at Sumter Because they SC
thought and believed We had four years o.
long and bloody war, the progress Of which
was marked by the perpetration-as Al
Libby and AndersonviIle-of the foules
crimes that ever blackened . people and
dishonored a government. And because