Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1877-04-24
Carpet Baggers and the South.

From q letter written by General Thomas W
Conway to the Albany Journal and published in
that paper we copy the following:
1t seems to be generally forgotten now that we
had big war which left The North in posse ssion
Of the idea that it would be unsafe to hastily
clotbe the rebels. who made it. with the powers of
government again soon after they were forced to
surrender. 1t seems not to be now generally con-
sidered, In viewing the present condition of the
South, that Congress advised the plan of recon-
strucnon-not the carpet-baggers, and that the
plan granted the elective franchise to the freed
men. And II is not considered that the presence
of white republicans was deemed an absolute me-
cessity of the plan which was adopted, because
Constitutions had to be framed officers had to be
chosen, laws had TO be made, judges had to be
elected, and courts organized. All these required
white men, with capacity; and if these men were
not to be found the plan could not work-in fact
il would never have been adopted Read the Re-
port of Joint Committee on Reconstruction and
see how eager that body was to ascertain whether
there were intelligent Union men enough in the
south to administer the governments.
Now that many mistakes have been found in the
plan, the idea seems to be 10 blame somebody
and SO the blame falls on the men who helped
Congress execute its plan, and they are called
Carpet Baggers.' The rebels in 1861 are now
styled "Souihern citizens" fellow citizens of the
SOUTH DC; whereas, those citizens who settled
in that section, after having done their share to
gers.
Suppose that Nortl ern men had not remained
10 the South at the close of the war, do you sup
pose that the rebels would have adopted laws i'm
posing taxes for the education of the emancipa led
blscksf Would the Southern Constitutions of
government be as liberal as they are but for the
Carpet Baggers p Who but Carpet Baggers"
would have been found to follow Lincoln's eman-
cipation proclamation with free education
II the crusade of the bulldozers against North
ern republicans should be the means of stimulat-
ing similar opposition TO corners in the Ter
ritories OF the West, tell you we could new
er have another State added to the Union from
That great empire. / tell you more. Ii the
present, Southern crusade succeeds, as now
seems likely, this century will end before any
such thing as federation OF political differ
ences will be known 10 the South. Iincoln
emaneipated four millions Of men from bondage
but now there Is crusade az ainst free so, ech.
free schools, free newspapers and tree consc,epces
in the South which promises to end in MAKING
slaves Of forty millions. In 1868 Republican state
men were put TO their wits ends 10 discover a way
by which we could be rid Of the great national
curse Of slavery; but now fourteen years from
then, il takes all the ingenuity OF the President
Cabinet and editors to devise a means for the re-
visai OF that same curse, only under new name
and 10 new form. Formerly only blacks were
slaves IN the South, but there were two parties 1;
hereafter both blacks and whites are doomed to be
slaves, snd here viii be but one party allowed
tiere-nsmely the ID, mocratic party