Year: 1879

Correspondence Cleveland Leader


For some days past your correspond
ent has been talking more or less with ;
number of the most extreme men of tn,
North and the South, men who hav,
made their names synonymous eithel
with radicalism or fire-eaters' ideas. Or
both sides it is surprising to find what {
revival of sectional feeling has occurred
since the recent deadlock in Congress:
began. Among the Republicans there
seems to exist a dependency concerning
the near future of the party, bitter dis
gust at their mistaken magnanimity in
the past; in ever having taken a horde
of unhung rebels back into political fel
lowship after the close of the war, and q
melancholy impression that the Nation
is on the verge of darker days than il
has seen since 1861.


! With the Democrats, and there is nc
distinction now between those of the
North and those of the South, the case
is exactly the reverse. To them every.
thing is bright; they laugh at the action
of the North in enfranchising the Con-
federacy simply because hostilities had
ceased, and regard it not as thing to be
at all grateful for, but simply as the
foolish doings of a very daft commune
ty. They openly boost that since the
North was SO anxious for them to come
back, they have come back, and that
too with thirst for vengeance that has
ranked for eighteen long years, but
which will now be appeased, and that
they have come back to stay.


"Wewill," they say, repeal all your
enforcement acts to secure fair elections
and then elect the next President, in
spite of all you can do"


"Then," said they, will he our hour
of retribution. We will clean every one
of you hirelings from the hundred thou
sand offices of the Government. We
will scale the national debt as we have
cur State debts; we will pension our
poor Confederate soldiers who, beggared
and ragged, have lived on for years in
the good faith that this day would some
time come; we will pay ourselves from
your well-flled Treasury for all the loss
tes your armies caused us during the war.
We must do it, or we will continue in
the dreadful poverty your war has
brought upon us, for self-preservation is
the first law of nature. We will tear
your amendments from the Constitution,
or nullify them with hostile State and
Federal legislation. The darkey will be
taught to take the place that belongs to
him. Then we will build our Pacific
Railroad, and every town in the South
shall have new court house and Gus
tom house. We will cut Texas into
four States, and perpetuate our power in
the Senate by gaining six Senators there
and two more in New Mexico, which
shall come in as a State, and two more
from Utah. In this way your gain of
Congressman in the North over the
South by the next census will be balan-
ced in the Senate Our Southern rivers
and harbors shall be improved from the
fountain head to tidewater, and the best
of it is your rich communities in the
North will have to pay for it. What is
more, you will not be able to help your
selves for we will profit by your mis-
takes, and when we get ON top of the
heap again, none but the most extreme
Southern men and measures shall pre-
vail. There will no soft-hearted non
sense and magnanimity about us. You
have kept us in living hell for the past
eighteen years, and now We propose to
get even with you. When it becomes
necessary for us to increase our power
again, we will annex another slice from
Mexico, as we did before, except that we
have country there with miserable
population, which we can equip with a
superstructure of Southern gentlemen,
and run in as voters in States that can
|


be carved out of them as soon as we
annex the territory, without having to
wait for it to grow, as in the case of
Texas. 1t is upon this theory of gov
ernment that the South ruled for seven
ty-fve years before the war. 1t is upon
this plan that we will rule you for sew
enty-five years to come. We are bound
to do it. Not only do we intend to rule
you, but you must apologize to us for
the insults we have suffered at your
hands, and we will tax you for our sup
port from this time on" And the worst
of it is that it looks very much as if they
would do all they say and even more.


In the next election, in case the Dem
ocrats repeal the election laws, which
provide for the use of the army and SUI
pervisors at the polls to preserve peace
and secure fair count, there will not
be much chance of electing a Republi-
can President. You see, as the stalwarts
say, Hayes has abandoned three States in
the South. South Carolina, Louisiana
and Florida, with whose aid we only
carried the last election by one vote, are
lost to us beyond a doubt. New York
and Indiana are more than likely to be
Democratic, as they were before, while
California and Nevada, which were Re
publican, are thrown into the doubtful
class by the attitude of President Hayes
and q nainritu of Rpnnhlicans on the