Year: 1872

dation of the governmental system. 1t might
have been wise and humane 10 protect the
freedmen in their newly-acquired privileges
when the rebellion was just at an end and
while the Southern States were in process of
rehabilitation. But years have passed since
the fall of the Confederacy and of slavery.
and it is now time that all tho States of the
Union, North and South, East and West,
should enjoy the same freedom and the Same
exemption from federal interference in their
domestic affairs. The Southern people have
done all in their power to prove their alle-
glance to the national government, their
earnest desire to be at peace and to regain the
prosperity lost through the insane policy Of
their leaders. What more can they do to enti-
tie them to full restoration of all their rights as
American citizens? What more ought we to
require of them2 Some extreme politicians
proclaim the desire to hold the South in chains
until the generation living whom rebellion was
Matched shall have passed away; but SO un-
charitable policy fortunately finds no favor
with the people of the North, and would be
destructive of republican institutions should
it be attempted. Others justify the continu-
ance of military rule over the Southern States
on the plea that should they be left to them
selves the white citizens would strip the
negroes of all their civil rights. No doubt in
some localities prejudice might for time dis
criminate against the colored voter but preju-
dice in New York declaimed against the nomi-
nation of Catholic for the Office of Gov
ernor and would discriminate if it could
against citizens of Irish nationality. Why
should any one class of citizens receive special
evils feared in the Southern States would find
their own cure in time, as all such evils
do, and should the Southern people be
left wholly to themselves to manage their
own affairs in their own way without federal
intermeddling negrophobia would soon be as
dead in the South as Know Nothingism is in
the North


President Grant may be unable to remedy
the evils in Louisiana. The Warmoth party
has been beaten, and so far as the deposed
Governor is concerned his fate will excite no
sympathy except as he represents the out
ragged sovereignty of the State. But the Pres
ident must now see clearly that the rights and
interests of the white citizens Of the South are
made the prey Of an unscrupulous set of politi-
cal adventures, and that the Enforcement act,
instead of being simply protection to the ne
groes, is used by designing men to destroy the
last vestige of liberty in that unhappy section
of the Union. AS the President received q
generous support from the Southern people he
is bound to protect their interests, and in so
doing he will advance his own. In the war
his policy was shrewdly taken. He risked no
battles until prepared to strike ON effective
blow. He drew his lines steadily and
carefully round the struggling Confeder-
ates and when they were fairly in
the tolls dealt blow after blow until their
power was utterly destroyed. He seems dis
posed to apply similar tactics to the foreign
policy of his administration. For four years he
has been quietly measuring his ground, and
having settled amicably all our differences
with England, he now launches out in warlike
preparations. IT the building Of ships of war
foreshadows a decisive movement for the free
dom Of Cuba the people will rejoice as
heartily as when Lee surrendered and Rich
mond fell. But no act of President Grant $
eventful life will win him greater credit and
renown than the disenthralment of the South
ern States. 1t is in his power to restore free
dom and happiness to large section of our
own country. lie has already prepared the
way by denouncing the acts of the politicians
engaged in the miserable scramble for
Office at the South, and by depreciation of the
Enforcement act as an extreme and undesira-
BILE law. Now let him deal such a final, sturdy
blow at carpet-bag policy as he dealt at
the Confederacy and he will win for himself a
lasting fame second only to that of the Father
of his Country.