Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1875-03-18
There Ia Method In Their Madness.

The editor Of the Albany Eceaiaq
Journal writes from Washington to his
paper:
"All the true men who have been
South make similar statements The
Mississippi, the Alabama and the Arkan-
sas Committees confirm the story. told
/ you something-only n little--of what
Mr., Conger, Chairman of the Mississippi
committee, related. He said Gov.
ames was in quite as much peril as
Gov. Kellogg He added that the
ne OF any member of the committee
would not have been worth picayune
alone after dark. The Alabama Com
mittee has convincing evidence that, dur
ing short time included within the pc
Rod OF their investigation, horrible
and nameless outrage was committed
| upon a large number of blacks. see
that Gov. Garland, of Arkansas, saws
there are now no assassinations in that
State. 1t may be so; it may be that the
reign OF terror is now complete without
it. But Mr.. Ward, of the Arkansas
Committee, states that while he was
there on the investigation twenty assas-
sinations were perpetrated, of which
eighteen were political. The truth is,
are profoundly convinced Of the malign
spirit of the rebel element, and they pre-
sent an overwhelming array of facts
which must convince everybody.
=" All this is not hate or madness without
method-it has deep and farreaching
design. 1t aims first of all at the control
of every Southern State. On fair and
free vote several of those States are Re
nm IL
Mississippi, Florida, Louisiana and
Arkansas have an undoubted Republi-
can majority. To wrest them from their
hands intimidation is necessary. With
the mastery of every Southern State the
rebel element has two possibilities. In
the first place it may enforce its local
policy; and, in the second place, II only
needs fifty electoral votes from the en-
tire North and West to capture the Gen
eral Government. With the success Of
the former plan it will reduce the blacks
to practical peonage-with the success
Of the latter plan it will bring forward
every imaginable claim. Already in sew
cral Southern States schemes have been
proposed with the design of shutting out
the blacks from the ballot-box and
placing them under the heels of their old
iudStSIS. men again lHc TCUtl clciutIb
OF Arkansas has just adopted new Con-
stitution. In the Constitution Of 1868
there was prohibition of secession. In
The Constitution of 1874 this prohibition
is struck out. WhyY
"The country still misconceives very
much of what it sees at the south. Take
the banditti' dispatch of Sheridan. He
simply used language which Washington
himself used. But, whether justified or
not, the country has never understood It's
purpose. Sheridan had no thought that
the plan Of military commission that he
suggested would be adopted. The dis
patch was not designed for report to
Washington or for the information Of
the country, but for immediate effect in
New Orleans. 1t was, rs President
Grant describes it, simply piece Of
strategy. All New Orleans was in a fer
ment. 1t was the day after the coup
d'etat in The Legislature. The city was
like powder magazine, where spark
would produce an explosion. Some
thing was needed to strike and subdue
the infammatory populace, and Sheridan,
with soldiers keen eye, wrote the dis
patch Its object was shown by the fact
that he sent it first of all to the New
Orleans newspapers. 1t had its effect
and he was right"