The daily gazette. [volume] (Wilmington, Del.) 1874-1883, 1876-10-31
THE DE BITS OF ,rHE SOUTH.

THE DEBTS OF 'rHE SOUTH.
The New York Tlmesp1bliches the fol-
lowing statement of the Indebtedness of
Southern States:
Alabama. 80, 100000 N. Carolina .s 80 90, ,0c0
Arkansas. 81 2,000t00 s, Carolina ...sl3.0 % 600
Florida. IS 5o00 900 Tenn essee.... .S23 0O0D
Georgia. l00.G00 Texas. 5,0O o000
Louisiana. 22.00D.coo Virsinia 7500, 900
lotat
Much of this is held in New York and
in other Northern States. A great part
has been incurred while the South was in
the hands of Northern Republicans. and
native negroes pinned to it by Federal
bayonets. A large share of the money
obtained by the bonds has been stolen by
Republican carpet-baggers. With the
raising and using of the money represent
ed by this total debt the native-born
Southern whites who are property-owners
have had little to say. Since the rebel
lion was officially declared by the Presi-
dent, in April, 1866, to be at an end, the
Republican party has been, until very re-
Gently, in full possession of those States,
and Of every department of the National
Government-executive, legislative and
Ijudicial-and it decided that during the
rebellion the relations of these States, as
States, to the Union, were only broken or
suspended. 1t decided, finally, that Con-
gress alone could restore those broken re-
lations. In 1867 Congress called them
"rebel States" and put them completely
under "the military authorities of the
| United States" They were governed by
the sword as conquered provinces after
the President pronounced the insurrec-
ton ended. If this could constitutionally
be done for one year, it could in the dis
cretion of Congress be done for ten years.
But the Republican party did not decide
to keep these States in pupilage so long,
and in that condition endeayor to assimi-
late the two races and assuage the resent
ments of the war. Measures in 1867 were
begun to rehabilitate and reconstruct
them as States in the Union. And how !?
Upon Democratic plan? Not at ALL
But upon Republican plan. The mill
tary commanders had power from Con-
gress in 1867 to blot out all that had been
done by President johnson and begin de
moro. Sickles was sent to South Carroll
ma with power to appoint boards of regis
tration to record who could vote. Con-
gress peremptorily excluded those who
had taken part in the rebellion against
the Union. The control of all elections
was placed under the sword. Congress
dictated the form of her fundamental law,
and of all the Southern States. The in
stitutions of those States were in that
sense fashioned in Washington. The ex-
cluslon of white rebels from voting for
delegates to the constitutional conven-
tions, and the domination of the sword,
resulted in putting the States not only in
the hands of the Republican party but in
the hands ofthe negroes who took North
ern carpet-baggers into partnership as
} rulers of the States. The whites were
everywhere impoverished and the blacks
had nothing, and nobody to employ them
but the whites who owned what property
there was in the States. There was COM
mon poverty. The INSCRIPTIONS and
needy strangers who focked to these
States strove by all ways to embtter the
two native-born races against each other
and thereby to lift themselves into power.
They were too successful under powerful
aid from Washington, and naturally the
white men who had been rebels stood
aside in silence and despair. If the latter
endeavored to participate in State affairs
they were denounced, and the negroes
taught to resist and hate them.
This is, in general, the condition of
affairs throughout the South. The for
mer rebels therefore acquiesced, and the
carpet-bag plundering went on apace.
County and town debts were rolled up
with startling rapidity and volume, be-
side the State debts. The taxation of
property was next to confiscation. There
was no law or justice but what the carpet
baggers and negroes saw fit to give.
When the plundered property-owners en-
deavored to protect their property, they
were reported at Washington as striving
to deprive the negroes of their rights and
immunities as citizens. The President
fired proclamations at them as from re-
volving weapons, and finally in October,
1871, put great part of South Carolina
under martial law. Ireland was never
so harried and narrowed by England, in
her worst days, as was South Carolina
and the South by the Radical leaders of
the Republican party who controlled the
army. These States did everything which
Congress required of them. They rati-
fed the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth
amendments. They framed new State
constitutions, such as Congress dictated.
In that work all male negroes over
twenty-one years of age and residents par
ticipated, to the exclusion OF white rebels.
When those States sent Senators and
Representatives to Washington, only
such were admitted as satisfied the Re-
publican party. Grant sent picked
crew into them as Federal officials.
Whenever, in any election, there was
danger of negroes voting with Democrats
the army was put in motion to stop it..
, The financial outcome is partially given
above by the Times and the political stu
f alton We see to-day in South Carolina.
, 1t is the result of government in all the
South by the party of Hayes. There is
no education in all that land thus held
by Grantism for nearly dozen sad and
, dreary years. The men and women
, twenty-five years old to-day were only
nine when the stupid, wicked and ma
J licious rebellion began by no fault of
) theirs, and they have been nursed and
l.