Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1889-06-30
American ConGscations.
d he Elltor of he Dispalot :

To he Editor Of he DisPGtci:
Citizens of the United States are prone
to boast of the freedom of their country,
and its exemptions from the tyranny rs
well as the abuses Of what they term the
ELECTROMAGNETIC" Of Europe. Yet, have
we not been travelling through a more de-
structive tyranny Are We not suffering
from abuses far worse than may be tOund
in the monarchics of Europe! Else why
should New England senator have said
that We have 1.-The most corrupt govern
ment on earth"! This declaration should
be accepted more generally as t,tSts by
the press and by political commentators,
in order that the corruption may be extlD-
puished and Justice and honor take It's
place. COnfscation and corruption as
sumed dangerous proportions IN The Meth
erlands through the " Blood Council u; I'M
der Alva. in France, from the assumption
of Supreme Power over the national as
sembly by Robospierre, Marat, and Others.
In the United States conhscatlon became
fearful during the sitting of the " Bloody
Shirt Congress, manipulated by Ihad.
Stevens. Sumner, and Others. The true
history of American conhscatIous has
never been written, but the fourteenth
and fifteenth amendments still stand be-
fore the world as q proclamation of the
greatest robbery in constitutional his
IOTN-OL luE iudl4lON ~ MAii'4i a AiANAOhr IL
Nv free-schooled people saw fit TO coDtis-
cate from their own race four thousand
millions of dollars worth of slave proper
ty, converting the same into political capt.
tai for the party coniscating. Could the
Duke of AlVa and the Blood Council
arise from their graves they might ex-
claim How very mild we were in COM
parison with modern Protestant America"
The animus of contscation, however, was
ripe, even before the fourteenth and
fifteenth amendments were adopted. 1t is
not generally known, but is nevertheless a
fact, that Mr.. W. w. Corcoran was
threatened with the conhscation Of
much of his property, and only saved il by
establishing the Art Gallery" pro bono
p,,biicOi De Forest mentions touching
case in South Carolina, where an ancient
parent exclaimed to a little child: "Sissie,
that's your plantation" 1t was an estate
that the then Government had turned over
to the blacks. To the credit Of General W.
L. Sherman it must be said that he tried to
save what was left of property TO the
southern people when at the surrender of
Johnston's army he agreed with General
johnston that the southern States should
return TO the Union with their Constitu-
tions as then existing. Those Constitu-
tions contained good property laws, but
were ruthlessly cast aside by the authori-
ties at Washington. Nor is il possible
without constitutional change for large
portion of the American people TO avoid
the confscation (by slow degrees) OF their
private property through the local laws 10
which they are now chained down by the
fourteenth and fifteenth amendments. "A
corrupt tree cannot bring forth good fruit"
The Inauguration OF acorrupt national Con-
stitutiQn; the setting aside long ago Of the
property laws of the States such as pre-
vailed during Washington's Administra-
ton enforced universal suffrage through
the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments
for all the States, developing extravaganza,
wasteful appropriations, n rabble civil SER
vice, factions. and swarms of demagogues,
have left the county people in the old thir-
ten States east OF the Mississippi in a de-
plorable situation. The growth of some
Of our cities. partly by the infusion of for
eign capital, does not cure the evil. The
destruction of property is fearful when
considered ~ It should be. and more gen