Year: 1874

lump, and he Is showing lalr side 10
the whites-the cX-rehel military ele-
mcnt, like Gordon, Mosby and KEN
per- The southern people would glad
iy accept third term or fourth term,
or any number of terms, If they could
have friend in the presidential chair,
one whom they had helped to elect,
and whom they could approach for


favors. They cannot hope to elect
n democrat as democrat--thnI Is i'm
possible-and the notion is getting into
their heads that the next best thing
they can do Is to take Grant for third
term. They care less down there about
breaking over custom than we do.


What little patriotism and reverence
they had for our time-honored institu-
tions after the war has been seriously
affected by the conduct of the carpet
haggers and thieves who have swarmed
i'm among them. We need not look to
the south for any serious protest against
Il third term.


If Senator Fenton 50. little under
stands the feelings and purposes of the
southern people rs to entertain the
opinions attributed to him in the fore
going extract, he writes himself down
as utterly unqualified to sit in the high
est legislative body in the land and
make laws for the government of the
country. He must base his estimate
of the southern character upon what he
knows of his own people. The allega-
ton that they would gladly barter
away all their political principles for
the sake of having friend at WASH
ington, whom they could approach for
favors, is without foundation in fact,
and is a wanton insult to brave and
heroic people, who have for years


borne outrages and insults that they
could at any time have converted into
caresses by Willingness to sacrifice
their convictions of right and become
the supporters of those who had IN
flicted the blows. Nor is there more
truth in the statement that the southern
people are Indifferent to the future
of the country, and careless rs to
whether the form of government es-
tablished by the fathers is preserved.
The southern people, if we have any
knowledge of their feelings, realize
that their destinies are inseparably
bound up in the future of the Ameri-
can union, and that whatever of civil
liberty they are to enjoy hereafter is to
be secured under the constitution of
the United States. They are II liberty
loving people, and they are impressed
with the idea that if constitutional
government and civil liberty are to be
preserved at all in this country, it is to
be done by their influence; that they are
the leaven that is to leaven the whole
mass of unthinkng and heterogeneous
people that go to make up the popula-
ton of the union. There is no doubt
that the reconstruction measures, with
all The vilainies that followed in their
trail, did so far toward destroying any
reverence tie southern people might
possibly have had for the national gov
ernment; but to suppose that their
reverence for those grand old men who
laid the foundations of the govern
ment, and for the foundation stones on
which the government was erected,
has been either destroyed or weakened
by the wholesale spoliation and rob-
berry of what little the ravages of war
had left to them, is to do violence to
their manhood and to their proud
character for self-sacrificing devotion
to principle. Those who, like Senator
FeEton, judge SO erroneously OF the
south, do so because they are unable to
draw the distinction between attach
ment for n government and attach
ment for the administration Of that
The southern people de-
sire nothing better than the form of
provided for in the consti-
tuition of the United States. There are
very few of them who have any fond
ness for the government as at present



Senator Fenton is grossly mistaken.
1t is to the south, and to the south
alone, that he need look for any seri-
Gus protests against third term on
principles looking to the preservation
of civil liberty. -.s.v