National Republican., 1881-08-31
Restoration versus Reconstruction.


The Mississippi campaign just opened
is likely TO be heated one. For the
first time since 1874 an election is TO be
he.dther by this we mean that voters Of
differing opinions are to seriously con-
tend for supremacy in State affairs.
The Mississippi plan " inaugurated in
the year referred to was based upon the
idea that, the virtuous and enlightened
Democratic party being in the minority
and the opposing majority being ignorant
and vicious, the minority rule ought to
be substituted for that of the majority.
The embarrassments attending the ener-
getic measures necessary for reducing the
majority were not allowed to hinder what
was claimed to be the good work. The
negroes were "taught to know their
place" 1t is true that the Democratic
party everywhere, and especially in Mis-
sssippi, had long before that time pro-
claimed its undying devotion 10 the Fiji
teenth Amendment, which guaranteed
negro suffrage. But the Bourbons Of the
South never for moment intended to
tolerate any interference with their rule
through tho trihing circumstance of being
outnumLered by their political antago-
nsts among the legal voters,
They had at first encountered some
obstacles in the form of guns, with Fed
eral bayoncts" attached tthe latter being
seldom used), which, in the hands ofregu-
lar soldiers Of the army of the United
States, have always been deemed the
most sensible, rs indeed the only prac-
tical remedy to be applied in cases of
.forciJle resistance to the national au-
thority.
The cruelty of thus interfering with
law-breakers who honestly believed the
minority ought to rule because Of its
virtue touched the hearts of many Re-
pubicans who had failed to get Office un-
der Grant The Bourbon minority freely
admitted that their opponents were de-
PRAYED and ignorant while they MS nm
hcsitatingly confessed themselves to be
not only most virtuous but highly cul-
tyated and enlightened. Such evidence
was irresistible, and the Republican party
was dissolved for time by the with
drawal therefrom of those in the North
whose sense Of justice compelled them 20
side with the Bourbons, whose rude
methods toward the negroes, while they
caused greatly increased mortality, never
theless evidenced superior integrity,
These deserters from the party, moved
as they were by longing to be caressed
by Bourbon masters TO equality with
whom they dared not yet aspire, carried
with them many silly people on the false
pretense that all the virtue had left the
Republican party, and that newly-dis-
covered evidence had demonstrated the
fact that the precious article could only
he preserved by marriage with the North
ern Democracy. They did not carry the
country, but they dazed it, so that there
has not been any healthy energy Of the
party since,
The first Congress elected after this
period ofdismembermentwas Republican
but II faltered and paltered, doing nothing
beyond usurping the functions Of the
District grand jury, II ended ingloriously
in a struggle over a measure intended to
strengthen the hands Of the Government
in n few insurreclionary districts, in
which struggle the Bourbon side pre-
vailed President Grant was anathema.
tized at about the same time for respond.
ing to call by Louisiana TO aid in sup
pressing domestic violence in thGt state
and his assassination boldly advocated in