Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1877-01-13
How the People See 1t.
Washington Union

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standpoint Authority has not been
appealed to in vain, and when preee-
dent was wanting analogy furnished
arguments to vindicate the position
assumed by the Democratic leaders.
The people have reached the same
conclusion by shorter path. Without
the time, inclination and preparation
for exact analysis and elaborate COM
bination OF facts and principles. the
people are endowed with a gift of
grouping together the important ele
ments Of question, and arriving at a
decision through the channel of judg-
ments sharpened by self-interest and
enlightened by good conscience. Dis
missing all technical features. they
occupy themselves with the moral and
material aspects of the case. In this
frame of mind they consult the past,
reflect on the present, and scan the
future. and after this manner they rea-
son:
When the war ended, President
Lincoln, obedient to the dictates of
happy intuition which supplied the
place of the philosophical statesman
ship characterizing his early predeces
sors, recognised how abstruse prob
lem was the rehabilitation of the
Southern States, and suggested a plan
whereby right and expediency were
reconciled. He proposed to confide
into the hands OF the Southern people
the duty of reorganization and the
means of recuperation. Secession was
settled and slavery abolished. There
we're no antagonisms of political doc
triEe and domestic institutions between
! the North and the South they were
never before so essentially one people.
The magnaninity in the farm house at
Appomattox was echoed in the White
! House at Washington bright bow
of promise spanned the national hori
zon. But victory, though complete
and decisive, did not fill the cup of
the leaders in the Cabinet and Con-
gress. The generous and solemn
pledges of the soldiers were broken
in their spirit and the wise and hu-
name policy of the President Was
strangled in its inception. Military
governors were placed at the head of
affairs in the South, and the Freed
mans Bureau scattered its emissaries
over that section-missionar of the
gospel Of falsehood strife and corrup-
ton. Retrospection reveals the first
cause of to-day's threatening evils in
the shape of the. reconstruction mea-
sures of the Radicals, and their subse-
quent disagreement of the South.
Turning from the past to the present
and the future. it is seen that an evil
intended to afflict one section threat
ems the whole country. 1t is notalone
that the purity Of the Chief Magls-
tracy is threatened with disgrace, or
that the majority of the people are
hidden to bend before the bold as
sumption of desperate and danger
Gus minority, but it is the combination
| of ills-moral, material and political
resulting from the triumph of kna-
very, that strikes the note of warning.
For decade the South has hung
like a leaden weight upon the progress
slveness of the North. The dead body
of the Siamese twin, poisoning the
life blood of the surviving brother,
furnishes the fttest illustration of the
relation between the two sections-one
blessed with honest, intelligent self
government the other cursed with
cancerous excrescences-the corrup-
! ZION OI I1S IdltGT IBCutuS upOu lnc
vital powers of the former.
A national debt undiminished and
disheartening; taxation driving the
poor to crime and tempting the rich to
perjury and fraud idle workshops and
silent mill wheels; brain and muscle
once engaged in healthy, honest labor,
now enlisted in an army of vaga bonds
called tramps, unknown before, who
infest the highways orvibrate between
the poor-house aud the penitentiary.
This is a picture of the North of to-
day; while the South, with all Of its
natural facilities, that invite and re-
ward capital and industry, is a desert,
with an occasional oasis springing up
only where self-government has gained
a recent though precarious footing.
One half Of great country deadened
in its energies, idle in its marts and
manufactures, the other half under
the guardianship of unreasonable
adventures, where intelligence, ex-
perience and property are subordinated
to ignorance, eharlatanism and un-
sanctioned greed, cannot bestow mu-
tual aid.
The perpetuation of such a condi-
ton is the danger that is threatening
the evil to be guarded against. The
triumph of Radical knavery would
confirm the policy of the past, not
only in the South, but over the whole
country. Instead of Frightening
horizon, the fraudulent counting in of
Mr.. Hayes would present vista of
wretchedness. 1t would proclaim the
supremacy Of returning boards at the
polls of the South, the succession of
carpet baggers in its gubernatOrial
mansions, Of ignorance and venalty in
It's legislative halls 1t would add a
fatal blow to the hopes CT reviving
commerce, industry and prosperity at
the North, and in the degree that it
postponed recuperation it would mag
Nifty the burdens which impoverish the
living, and which wait to usher in
posterity to a mortgaged birthright.
On the other hand, the Inauguration
of Mr.. Tilden would not only confirm
the faith of mankind in the creed of
| enforcement, but would give assur-
once that there is a reserve of virtue
in the most critical moments that the
people can rely on. When it was first
| believed that Mr. Tilden was elected,
and would be the next President, a
sudden citation was felt from the center
to the circumference of trade. This
revival was succeeded by a correspond
ing depression when the nefarious de-
signs of Mr.. Chandler were developed.
Every interest is row held at bay wait
ing to be unlocked by the announce
ment that Mr.. Tilden will occupy the
White House.
That event will be the signal for
new life throughout the land. The
two sections will once more contribute
to each others and the nations pros
perity. The North will listen again to
the busy hum of wheels. and the South
gaze once more on full and fruitful
| fields.
A DOG near Norfolk, Va, was taught
to wait every day for railroad train,
catch newspaper thrown out by the
baggage master and carry it home.
His master died several months ago,
but he goes every day to get the news