The gold leaf. [volume] (Henderson, N.C.) 1881-1911, 1902-07-03

The ANu,ttic Mont1iv has rendered
an important service - the nation by
the publication during the past year
Of a serie- IF contributed articles on
the history and politics Of the recon
struction period in the No"thern
States. The writer's have been in
part Southern men who participated
in the affairs If that period, in part
Southern men Of the younger gener-
alton vino represent the new South,
and its attitude toward slavery and
the negro franchise, and in part i'm
partial historians like Prof Woodrow
Wilson and William A. Dunnin@.
Most Of them have shown ample dis
position to appreciate the difficulties
which confronted the best men hoth
in the Mort Ii and in the South at the
close Of the war, and 80 seek the
causes Of the crave mistakes that
were made rather than to indulge in
condemnation. Il has been agreed
that had Abraham Lincoln's wise AMI
broad spirited plans been carried out
much Of the drplorable strife would
have been avoided. The giving OF
the franchise to the freedmen, all un-
prepared as they were, is almost uni
versalIy believed to have been mis-
take. The Republican governments
maintained by the support Of the
Federal authorities in Southern
States after their readmission into the
Union have never been so nnsparlng-
" revealed in all lEcir corruption
and reckless extravaganza by impair
tial historians. Criticisms Of the
work of the Frerdmcn's bureau, from
the Southern point Of view, have
shown that the high purposes which
actuated the leaders in that work did
not protect them from the mischief
wrought by incompetent and unprin-
cipled subOrdinates. The closing ar
ticle OF the series, in the October is
sue, shows the successive steps by
which the negroes have been disfran-
chised in Southern States by intimi-
datiOn, by fraud, by a general tacit
agreement which could hardly be
called either intimidation OF fraud.
and finally in several State, by con-
stitutiOnal amendments ostcnsibly
restricting the franchise by educa-
tiOnal or other tests, but really de-
signed to exclude all negroes and no
whites. Prof. Cunning calls this
process 1.-The undoing of reconstruct
ton" and such it certainly was in so
far as the reconstruction OF the South
u 4
upon the old Republican doctrine of
the manhood franchise ana fidelity to
the Fifteenth Amendment. The cdi-
tor points out that the Republican
party no longer stands for that prin-
ciple, and that ''our present national
insistence upon our right to admins
ter the affairs OF other races, in our
newly acquired territory, makes it
extremely embarrassing for either
party to urge literal obedience to
the Fifteenth Amendment in the
South. If the stronger and cleverer
race is free to impose its will upon
new caught. sullen peoples on the
other side of the globe, why not in
South Carolina and Mississippi?'
And ii IS but natural that the pro
tests now heard in the North again ST
the open process of defying the FIT
teenth Amendment in the South are
faint and hollow. carrying with them
no reasonable expectation of Federal
Intervention by the lessening of Con
gressional representation. Northern
sentiments and the political utter,
ances OF the dominant party have
swiftly and radically changed, due in
part TO the cause advanced by the
AtlGntic's editor, and in part to bet
ter understanding of the race ques
ton as ii exists today in the South.