Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1877-06-02
English Oninion of RadicaIism.

The London Standard of a recent
date has an article on the end of
cerpet-bag government in the South
that shows with what contempt and
indignation our English cousins
have viewed the bOasted reconstruc-
tion policy of the Republican party.
We quote
"The men who, taking advantage
of the disfranchisement of great
bodies of Southern whites and the
prescription of every leading South
ern statesman and soldier, took up
the trade of agitators in order to
make themselves rulers of States in
which they had no legitimate inter-
est, have done nothing to benefit
the negro, much to injure the whites
and still more to produce bitterness
and distrust between the two races.
They secured the negro vote by
promises they never attempted to
fulfill; promises which only the
deepest ignorance could have be-
lieVed, but which contributed foe a
long time to keep the negroes idle,
Il
posed upon people almost utterly
ruined by war, devastation and
emancipation, taxes which during
the highest prosperity of the South
would have been considered intole-
rable. In their actual condition the
property holders were utterly una
bic to pay these imposts, and num-
bers of valuable estates were sold
for payment of taxes from whose
expenditure the State derived little
or no benefit. AT the same time
the intrusive governments contract
ed enormous loans on the most reck-
less terms, by which they and the
Northern friends who undertook
the transaction alike profited at the
expense of the Southern taxpayer.
In one State, since 1865, the debt
has been increased from five millions
to forty; in many others obligations
almost equally enormous and un-
warrantable have been undertaken.
The money has been expended, not
in repairing the waste of war or en-
abling the people to reorganize their
reVOlutiOniZed system of industry,
but in making the fortunes of the
adventures, their hangers-On, their
Northern allies and advocates, and
those negro leaders whose influence
enables them to exact a share of the
spoils. In those Southern States
which have remained longest under
the rule of the adventures, the lat
ter have done more to impoverish
the people than did the war itself.
The administration of the law has
been grossly partial, Nothing but
! the striotest enforcement of legiti-
mate contracts and the stern dis
faith by the public authority could
have taught slaves emancipated by
a conquering enemy to work stead
! lily and loyalty as free men for wa
! ges. The Northern adventures,
caring nothing for the interest of
communities to which they were
strangers, thought only of winning
and securing the negro vote, and
encouraged the blacks to gather in
| towns, to lounge, to pilfer and to
idle in the country. No planter or
| farmer could obtain justice against
| the negroes who killed his cattle,
stole his pigs and fowls, plundered
his crops, and too often insulted his
family; still less against laborers
who, having received wages in ad-
vance, deserted at the critical mo-
ment when the cotton or tobacco
field were liable to utter ruin from
a weeks neglect. Wherever the
whites were successful, as in GeOr-
( Ola and Virginia, in wrestling power
from the intruders, the change from
extravaganza and anarchy to econ,
omy and order was immediate and
striking. Yet from none of the
States where this occurred were
there any such complaints OF mall
treatment of negroes, or any such
ugly stories of race collisions, as con-
stantly came from those quarters
where the "carpet-bag" govern
ments ruled by the vote, and nomi-
nally in the interest of the blacks. "