Year: 1877

The Presidents honor, as well as the
good of the country seems to be involved
in current reports at the South and South
west. These reports impute to the admin
istration a willingness to sustain certain
internal improvements. They can hardly
be less than inventions, pure and simple,
or such gross exaggerations as to be essen
TALLY untrue. One of these reports pur-
ports to narrate circumstantially an inter-
view with the president, in the course of
which he committed himself to the princi-
pie of subsidizing the South for the pur-
pose of promoting its prosperity. That
most fragrant of all pending jobs, the Tex
as and Pacific Railroad, is among the
measures which are said to receive his ap-
prevail; and colossal system of levees on
the Mississippi is described as another. If
one-half of the statements afOat are cor
rect, the brief and vague expression OF
opinion which was embodied in his inang-
ural address really covered the essentials
of the policy which the South urges upon
Congress, with the view Of carrying costly
projects into effect by direct grants from
the Treasury or by the free use of its credit.
The personal friends who were most active
in behalf during the excitement which at
tended the labors of the Electoral Commits
sion happen TO have been in every instance
known advocates of the Texas-Pacifc
scheme. The Southern Senators and men,
bers with whom these gentlemen held con-
fidential intercourse are conspicuously
identified with that scheme, and with the
efforts to fasten it upon the Treasury.


The faith reposed in the personal integ-
rity of the President will not suffice to
counteract the distrust with which these
plans for enriching the South at the ex-
pense of the nation are regarded through
out the North. Taking the Texas-Paeifc
Railroad as a specimen scheme, there is
really but one opinion about it among the
Northern people. The only aspect in which
they see it is that of an organized and i'm
pudent sttack upon the Treasury for the
benefit of ''rings" and cliques, who care
for nothing but themselves and the sinister
objects with which they are associated.
The agencies employed by Messrs. Scott
and Huntington, respectively, for infuen-
cling Congressional action have deepened
the disgust which is felt toward the task
they have in hand. The South helps them,
as a matter of course. The North is so de-
cided against them that it is disposed to
doubt the uprightness of those in Congress
from the North who look favorably upon
the undertaking. However disguised, it
retains the attributes of a vast scheme for
plundering the people for the benefit of
jobbers and corruptionists; and the con-
viction is that few Northern men with
clean hands will be found among its sup
porters. The President cannot afford to
be counted with those who stand ready to
help it.


Southern opinion seems agreed in assum-
ing that subsidies are an important feature
of the Presidents policy of conciliation,
and that foremost among them will be the
subsidy sought in behalf of the Texas-Pa-
cifc Road, and the local roads which are
to be treated as branches. The suspicion
is strengthened, that, in spite of denials,
some understanding was, in the first in
stance, established whereby the South is
to be pecuniarly benefited. Such a feeling
is at this time especially undesirable.
With u sincere desire for the obliteration
of sectional animosities, the North viii not
allow the South to dictate terms The lat
ter has had its own way in Louisiana and
South Carolina, and for that reason, if fol
no other, it needs to be taught that there
is limit to its demands.