The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1875-02-25
The Presidents Southern Policy.

If anything were wanting to prove
that the President has Southern policy
of his own, his recent message t. the
ifed Sta es Senate on Arkans IS affairs
supplies the want. The language used
in that message is susceptible of but one
construction. 1t means that if Congress
adjourns without in spme way recogniz-
ing the Garland Government in Arkan-
sas the President will assume the re-
sponsibility, if the question comes before
him in any way, of deciding between
Brooks, whom he overthrow two years
ago, and Garland and he presents the
matter in such shape as to leave no
doubt of the course he will pursue. He
will, if left TO himself, sustain the pre-
tensions of Brooks, and exhibit the spec
tacle to the nation of another State Gov
ernment besides that in Louisiana pinned
upon the people by bayonets. And not
withstanding his protestations, the coun
try is beginning to believe that that is
the kind of government which the
President would like to see in vogue
in every Southern State in which his
partisans are not really in the ascend
ency. Every State which he can fetter
and hand over to obsequious supporters
is, he thinks, a point in his favor IN the
third-term game. Take the case Of Ar
kansas. That State has passed complete
ly out of the lands of the partisan sup
porters of the Grant Administration.
Brooks, who was voted for in 1872 by
the Conservatives, is now q Republican
and supporter of the Grant Administra-
ton. Were he inducted by bayonets in
to office he would have to be sustained
by bayonets, and to render his situation
in any respect comfortable he would be
compelled to establish very close and
cordial relations at Washington The
State, kept under domination of Brooks
by Federal bayonets until 1877, could by
the same means be made to cast just the
electoral vote its rulers pleased; for the
voice of the people could be disregarded
and their verGict c0ntemned quite as
readily in Arkansas, and by the same III
fluences, as they have been in Louisiana.
Let us have peace" has beer a
favorite declaration with Grant; yet his
treatment If the Southern States has
been in flat contradiction of that declara-
ton. There is peace in Arkansas now;
but it is not peace which is pleasing t.
Grant He would give it "peace"
which would produce discord and con-
tention. He would level down all the
cpnsti utional barriers which protect a
State tom undue Federal interference,
and would use the bayouet, if necessary,
to reopen and again unsettle a question
which has been peacefully and salts
factorily settled. If he can invade
Arkansas on the pretext that he has now
ascertained that Brooks was the lawfully
elected Governor of that State in 1872, is
it not clear that no Southern State is
safe in the possession of local self
governments Senator Carpenter, in
recent defense Of Grant for his interfer-
ence in Louisiana, declared that the
President was the high constable of the
nation, and that it was his duty simply
to preserve the peace, not to decide
iudIcially upon questions. The President
does not take this to be correct defini-
tion, or he would never think for mo-
ment of determining for himself and for
tn people of Arkansas that Brooks was
elected Governor of the State for four
years in 1872; that the Constitutional
Convention which was elected in 1874
was an illegal and revolutn nary body,
and that the people, in accepting the
Constitution framed by that convention
and electipg officers under it, rendered
themselves and their work amenable to
him.
In view of the manifest determination
of the President, unless checked by Con-
gress to carry out dangerous and un-
constitutional policy toward Arkansas,
the duiy of Congress to interpose check
is imperative. The adoption of the
Poland report on Arkansas affairs by the
House of Representatives might have
some tendency to recall him to his
senses: but the fact that his message to
the Senate was submitted after that re
port had been agreed to by the committee
makes this somewhat doubtful-Detrott
Free Pres, Feb. Is.