Year: 1874




Attention has frequently been called to the
fact, in connection with the long, sad story
of Southern misrule, that the terrible condition
of affairs in the misgOverned States is per-
petuated by the action of the dominant party
in the country, which through the Admins
tratiOn continues in the Federal offices, and
consequently in positions of power and op-
portunities for mischief, some of the most
incompetent, dishonest, and dangerous men in
those States. The habit of the party in power
has been, while uniting in the denunciations,
which have been universal, Of the bad men
who have held the Southern States by the
throat, to discaim all responsibility for their
acts, and to say that while it was all very
deplOrable, there seemed to be no rem
edy, since the conduct of the Southern
whites made it necessary to overthrow
Slavery and give the freedmen the bal
lot for their own protection, and thus
put it in the power of the carpet-baggers to
use them for the purpose Of controlling poll
tics and plundering treasures. Ali the time
that they have been entering these disclaim ers
of responsibility they have recognized the
men who were making all the mischief at the
South as members of the party in good stand
ing, as political associates and allies.


Denouncing the villainies of these men, as
many of the party leaders and party presses
have done, or denying, as most of them have,
that the party was in any sense responsible
for the conduct of those who bore the name
and won the victories and devastated States
in the name of the party at the South, they
have never failed to rejoice over the political
successes of these scoundrels as their own;
never hestated to call them Republican vic
tories; never shrunk from association with
them as equals in the perfecting of the party
policy, or the carrying on of campaigns and
never in all this period of misrule put up so
much as a whimper of opposition to the whole
bad business 1t was theirs to reap the re-
wards, rejoice in the victories; use for party
purposes the men and their methods of cheat
ing and deviltry and then when the whole
country exclaimed at the Outrages and the
robberies to which innocent people at the
South were exposed, to raise up their hands
in holy horror with the rest, and say they had
no responsibility for them. and were only too
anxious to have better state OF things in
itiated.


In the discussion which has lately arisen
over the disturbed condition of affairs in the
Southern States it has at last happened that
the attention of those who alone can correct
it has been called to the tap-roOt of all the
trouble, the fact that the system of appoint
ments to Federal offices has kept in place as
bad a lot of men as ever packed q conven-
ton or plundered treasury, and that this
alone has perpetuated the frightful misgOv-
ernment of the past six or seven years. Un-
der the system of Congressional appointments
the President has nominated to the Senate for
the Federal offices in the Southern, as indeed
in all the other States, the candidates recon-
mended to his favor by the Senators and
members of Congress from those States The
Government patronage has been, not in the
hands of the President, but, as a
matter of fact, in the hands of the
Senators and Representatives. Carpet-bag
Senators and scalawag Congressman have
asked the appointment to important Federal
offices of ignorant, incompetent, and dishonest
creatures of their own, whose only service
was to the member procuring the appoint
ments, and their only mission the promotion
of corrupt politics and the perpetuaton of
rascally Ring rule. Precedent had established
the custom, and party wiled it that those
Senators and Congressman should control and
distribute the Government patronage. The
President had only to make the nominations
they dictated, and partisan Senate did not
fail to confirm them.


Evil consequences of great magnitude have
flowed from this pernicious spoils system at
the North. At the South they have been
almost incalculable. Thoughtful men have