Year: 1874

from our politics. After the lapse OF nine
years since the close of the war, it cannot be
said that those measures have not had a fair
trial. They must be judged by their fruits
They have not brought tranquility; they have
not revived Southern prosperity; they have
not restored fraternal feeling between our
countrymen who fought in the war; they have
not reinstated republican government in the
South; they have not enabled us to withdraw
military coercion from that afflicted section OF
our common country. The new State govern.
ments are rotten with corruption. Their
Legislatures are hotbeds from which there
has shot up "a rank growth of pecuniary in
fanny which has no other palliative than
the gross ignorance of the negro mem-
bers. The property of the South has
been burdened with swindling taxes until it
has become in many localities, nearly worth
less This monstrous injury to the South
is also an injury to the North. The whole
country is taxed to support the soldiers re-
quired for maintaining order in the Southern
States. The burden of government rests with
increased weight on the North when debt,
poverty and prostration disable the South
from bearing its proportionate share. The
very foundation of our free institutions is
sapped by accustoming the federal govern
ment to intermeddle in State affairs and set
aside the result of regular elections. The
frequent breaches of the peace in that sec
ton are the shame and scandal of the
times. The paramount necessity of the
country is to have this state Of
things remedied, and the remedy will come
more readily after being considered by o
national convention of peace and re-
construction. The great pressing national
want is restoration of order, tranquility and
governments which, resting in the free choice
of the people, do not need constant propping
by federal bayonets. Until this great issue is
decided and set OF rest all others are of subor-
dinate consequence.


The country does not ask the republican
party 10 undo its work in the South, but to
rectify and repair it The country does not
object to the fullest civil rights to all men, but
it asks that the new privileges and franchises
be reconciled with peace, order and prosperity.
II that party is incompetent to bring negro
rights into harmony with good order and
honest government the country will demand
that the task be put into different hands.
This is the great issue. When this is
settled the currency will be next in
order, and it can be dealt with more in
telligently when it is seen how much money
is wanted in the South in condition which
reawakens confidence and enterprise and sets
all the wheels of industry in motion. Next
in order, after sound currency, is the ques-
ton OF free trade Free trade as a political
question means free trade with foreign ma
TONS We already have it in our domestic
commerce. But before we can establish our
commerce with the world on q sound basis We
must first adopt the currency of the world as
the medium in which it is transacted. By
thus separating public questions and settling
each in its order we might restore dignity
and respectabihty to our politics, and enable
the people to vote intellige ntly on every great
issue without mixing and contounding it with
others,