Year: 1868

| Reconstruction and tho Party Leaders.
| Reconstruction Is fairly done with as
national issue, and 1t will be mischieyous to
| attempt to keep it on the boards in that char
acter any longer, whether the attempt come
from any Southern party that, being in a mi
nority, resorts to Congress against the majority,


or whether it come from radical agitators of
the North. Reconstruction is q fact in all the
States but three, and suffrage, government,
law in all those States must for the future be
as strictly domestic concern as in any
Northern State. Except on this view there
can be no peace and no safety anywhere, for
except on this view there are no States


Georgia has acted on the Congressional re-
quirements, has established a government
republican in form and has by law been ac-
cepted and declared State in the Union, and
there is no power anywhere to go behind this
record and dive into her history to find any
difference between her status and the status
of Pennsylvania. Those Southern COM
munites that have acted on the reconstruc-
tion laws have the full right now to govern
themselves and must do it, They must make
their own laws, and these laws, whether they
suit Northern men or not, must express
the will of the majority. The niger has
been given political power as a grand
thing to protect him in the places in which
freedom, with scarcely volition on his part, has
come to him. Let him stand on that There
can be no new interference, on any pretext,
NJ -
made the laws for the Southern people as we
chose while we had the right we must stand
by them even if they fail for if we go further
now-if we claim that the nation has power
to discriminate against certain States in their
domestic concerns and interlsre-then we OBJ
llterate the last right of States and the last
safety of the people. The niger, therefore, is
in the hands of his neighbors and in his own
hands, and must fight out his own destiny at
the polls, in the fields, in the schools, in the
workshops. He has the ballot; let it protect
him. h.


The Southern people must understand that
reconstruction as they have 1t in their seven
States is finality; and in the assurance of
this they must 60 forward in the physical de-
velopment Of their resources. They will find
more power in cotton than in agitation, and
will discover that their best ally in all regards
isl good crop. For men at the North who
fancy that reconstruction is not worked
out and who insist on keeping up
the fuss we hardly know ! cure.
We are sorry to see that Ben Butler promises
to be one Of these. We had better opinion
Of his perceptions, since we have so often
seen that in much apparent vagary and ex-
trayagance there was practical point peerly
alyayys II what hs did IIIs promise w ta keep
Grant 7blisy'' 6as . sound Of threat ID ID Il that
Wants grace and courtesy, and is altogether
provincial and narrQw-mindeq, He may have
to be told that hs did not succeed IN keeping
busy soldiers Of far less strategical capacity
than Grant-as Beauregard, and even poor old
Magrudef. He may also have to be reminded
that his own majority is in Massachusetts, only,
while Grants is over the whole country. He
will make great mistake to agitate anew the
issue of reconstruction. There Is topic,
however, to which he may with profit turn all
his thoughts and which will give scope for all
his ingenuity. We allude to the national
finances. National finance is subject as to
which our public men are lamentably igno-
rant, and yet it Is the most important in our
history. Our debt and its management are to
concentrate all the attention Of this people for
many generations to come; and we advise
Butler to study this subject and can promise
that if he only master the great facts of finan-
cial history and get at the elementary princi-
pies he may be the first man in his party for a
long while.