Year: 1865

General Buffers FOrty-secon0 VhOue


sandth speech.


That small clique of selfworshippers, the
Union League Club, lately invited General But
Ter to deliver his forty.second thousandth
speech in their presence General Butler was
ready, of course, and delivered the speech on
the LIST inst His subject was the reconstruc-
ton of the rebel States. The speech was
tolerably fair one as political speeches go-one
rather moro sequential than we sometimes get
at the Cooper Union, and In better English
than much that is said at Tammany Hall. But
yet it was essentially the speech of pettifog-
ging lawyer turned into small politician, and
showed how utterly impossible it is for man
of Buffers calibre to rise to the dignity Of the
subject that Butler on this occasion attempted
to treat. The points are all small-excellent
ones for small lawyer from Lowell-and
points that would make sensation at Lowell,
In those courts where men are sued by their
washerwomen for five dollars, where boys are
quarrelsome man is now and then mulcted in
mild damages for tearing the seat out Of his
enemys breeches On such an arena Buffers
ideas would be grand; but when he parades
them before the world, and touches great
national question, they 60 off as SO many Chi
nese crackers would in front of Fort Fisher.


The important question Of reconstruction
will be settled in larger way than any that
General Butler is ever likely to suggest. The
same idea of our national greatness that en-
larges the thoughts of the people that thrilled
in every mind from the hour that Richmond
and Lees army were taken that caused the
South to break down all at once, and that now
makes the European governments consider so un-
easily their relations with us, that same simple
perception and consciousness of our grandeur
as nation will settle the whole business OF re-
construction. For that consciousness and
sense of national dignity will keep the people
above the small points that General Butler
would have them dabble in, and 80 the South
ern States, in their present uncertain condition,
will be lett alone to the utmost possible extent
That is what Is necessary. The Southern peo-
pie have given up the confederacy out and
out, and their simple desire to be part OF the
greatest nation on the earth will do all the rest
They will originate new communities in the
simplest and most natural way-commu-
mites that will in all vital respects be new,
purged Of oil the errors Of rebellion, but In
habiting the old places, recognizing the old
boundaries and asking Of Congress all Of the
old rights that are consistent with the new con-
ditions They will get them, too, for the nation
will do nothing small or mean in this business;
nor will it refuse the right to vote to any man
whom 1t does not consider worth while to try
for treason. Congress will let the niger vote
even, for it knows that to lot him vote will do
no harm; and 1t will not refuse that vote at the
risk of building up another abolition party.


That is the real theory of reconstruction, and
the one that in all probability will have the
favor Of the President, who seems to under
stand the real nature Of the case. Mr.. john
sons position as Governor of Tennessee has
made him familiar with the state Of popular
feeling in the districts most Interested I. :s:s .:s
question. He haA also an old acquaintance
with the South and Southern people, and we
suspect that he can manage this subject with
out General Buffers advice. We suspect also
that he can carry out the proper programme
without even having Buffers assistance as one
of the military governors whom that General
suggests should be selected as much for their
knowledge of civil affairs as of army regu-
lations."