The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1877-02-01
JUSTICE TO THE SOUTH
Hostility to the Union and
Hostility to a Party.

The following wise and patriotic
sentiments are from recent letter
addressed by George Ticknor Cur
tbs to Massachusetts Republican ::
As to the assertion that the
Southern societies are still hostile
to the Union, there is one distinc-
ton that will go far toward its COM
plete r4futation. 1t has been too
much the babit of the Republican
leaders and politicians to regard
their party as the Union, or as the
representative of the Union. have
seen a great deal of evidence in the
South, among the white people,
since the war, OF dislike of the poll
tics, the methods and .aims of the
Republican party, and of very
strong feeling that the whole Re
publican policy has done them great
injury by putting their State gov
ernments into the hands of rapa-
cious and unprincipled adventures,
who have loaded them with enor-
nous public debts and ruinous
taxes. But / have seen no evidence
of hostility to the Union, and no
disposition to impute to the Union
the evils under which they have
suffered, and now continue to suffer.
They know full well that these evils
are the fruits of a vicious party
policy, and not the legitimate eff
fects of anything that the system Of
government comprehended by the
National Constitution ever contem-
plated either before or after the
late amendments.
They know full well that emanci-
patton and negro suffrage, dictated
by the sovereign power that speaks
whenever the National Constitution
is changed, did not necessarily lead
to the exclusion of the intelligence
and virtue of their communities
from their governments, but that
this was the work Of a party bent
on the acquisition of public spoil
and temporary power. They know
that after they had submitted with
the best possible grace to the recon
struction of their States on the new
basis of emancipation and negro
suffrage, if those who were born
upon the soil, whites and blacks to
gether, had been left to adjust their
own social and political relations
without a mischievous interference
from without, they could have pro-
duced good government and all its
beneficent fruits. They may, there
fore, plead guilty to the charge of
hostility to a party that has inflict-
ed upon them unnecessary ruin;
but the charge of hostility to the
Union is another matter, to be
judged upon far other evidence.
Consider for a moment what
were the alternatives presented to
the people of the SOUTH speak
now of the white population-when
the civil war was over. They were,
on the one hand, acceptance of the
supremacy of the Federal Constitu
tion, and a resumption of their
proper relations to the Union; or,
on the other hand, utter disfran
chisement and loss of all power to
participate in the government of
their own communities. Is it just
to say that they did not accept the
first of these alternatives frankly |
and freely? 1t is grossly unjust to
deny that they did so. Nor does it |
detract in the least from the merit |
of their behavior that after they had |
failed to make themselves country |
Independent of the Union, they had |
to make themselves a country with |
in the Union, or remain destitute of
all that constitutes a country tor |
free and civilized men. We, of the
North, owe them something for that
they did not allow their passions
to substitute despair for wisdom
and prudence, since that very wis
dom and prudence was the chief re
lance on which we could depend
for our own relief from the neces
sity of ruling that vast region BY
mere military power, and for a res
toration of that principle and prac
tice of local self-government which
constitute the merit, and involve for
all of us the safety of Republican
institutions.
Surely an impartial world will
say that those people, by their
renewal of their constitutional
relations to the Union, by their
best men to the public service,
by the sacrifices which they made
of long-cherished beliefs, by the
confidence which they reposed in
the Constitution of cur common
country, even after it had been so
changed as to revolutionize their
social condition, and by the pa
tience with which they bore sud
den destruction of property uapar-
alleled as to it's amount under any
decree that ever emanated from a
conquering power, surely an impe
rial Judgment will say that for these
things we owe to that people some
consideration, some willingness TO
believe in their sincerity and their
honor, some disposition to credit
their fidelity to the Union, some
trust in their love of constitutional
For let it not be forgotten
that the Union and the Constitution
are not the exclusive property of
any political party, and that hostil-
ity to a faction or an organization
that has misgoverned the country is
perfectly consistent with the truest
loyalty to that country, to its Gov
ernment, to its flag, and to all that
country, Government, and flag can
ever embrace.
A correspondent of the Knoxville
Tribune, in a communication to that
paper on the proposed repeal of the ten
per cent. law, says: 'It is notorious ,
that in former times, when in Tennessee
Daly six per cent. was lawful, very
large amounts of cash, owned by Ten