Troublesome Omens in the South.
THE following is the concluding portion of the address to the people reported at the Philadelphia loyal convention, Sept. 5, 1866, by the committee on the non-reconstructed States. But why continue the recital of these horrible records? We have before us evidence from every portion of the South proving the extent and increasing violence of the spirit of intolerance and persecution above set forth. This committee is in possession of information that Union men dare not attend this convention for fear of violence upon their return. Gentlemen of this convention have, since in this city, received notices warning them not to return home. We have omitted the relation of acts of ferocity and barbarism too horrible to relate, and the recital of which would scarcely be credited by a civilized people. We submit to the impartial judgment of the American people the fact that the State governments, thus ruled by a disunion oligarchy, and based on the political disfranchisement of 3,000,000 colored citizens, and the social disfranchisement of the entire loyal white citizens, are not republican in form, and are of doubtful legal existence; that they are undoubtedly despotic, and despotic in the interests of treason, as we of the South know but too well. This view of the condition of the South before the war, and of the events which have transpired since, brings up to our consideration the confirmed, consolidated, intolerant and defiant power of disunion, which now controls every department of the non-reconstructed States. All the restraining influences in favor of the Union existing before the war have perished from the land, save the republican light kept alive by the loyalists. The armed efforts to overthrow the government having been treated simply as an unsuccessful but heroic act, the leaders of the rebellion stand justified in the eyes of their own people. This is the basis of their justification. They possess the lands of the South. Through the favoritism of the military despotism enthroned at Richmond during the war, they absorbed by contracts and speculation the wealth of our section. They have been confirmed in the possession of this ill-gotten wealth by the pardoning power of the President. By the provisions of the National Bank act, requiring local residences for directors, they possess control of the entire financial power of the States, the lands, the cotton, the tobacco, and the railroad wealth—and wielding the banking influence of the country, and speaking by authority of the President, as the supporters of his administration policy, they dominate with an absolute power. If a conflict of arms for the gratification of sectional party hatred could be, as we have seen, precipitated notwithstanding the restraining influences which existed previous to the late war, what guarantee have we against a repetition of the bloody experiment in politics, now that the entire South is more intensely sectionalized than ever. Overawed by the fearful array of power which surrounds them, abandoned by the President and impoverished by the ruthless rule which has so long oppressed them, how can the Union men of the South hope, unaided, to maintain their ground? The remedy which is proposed in the President's policy will only increase our sufferings and open the way for perpetuating the tyranny of our oppressors. The admission of these representatives of the treasonable communities into Congress carries with it the admission of their votes in the electoral college. They will on many vital questions of legislation hold the balance of power in Congress, and they will also hold the balance of power in presidential elections. The effect of their votes in Congress, it is true, can be neutralized by keeping in the halls of the national legislature a solid body of men with whom it will be impossible for the agents of treason to affiliate, but the same check cannot be applied in the electoral college. The hope of wielding the united southern vote in the next presidential election has already corrupted the fountain of national justice at the capital, and an open and shameless coalition has been formed which needs only for its consummation the success of the President's policy. Into that coalition have been already drawn, by one influence or another, men heretofore honored with the dearest affection of the people. Thus the work of political corruption will go on. The South, compact, defiant, and sectionalized, with its anti-republican institutions resting on negro-serfdom as the corner stone; the North, torn by faction and distracted by the ambition of aspiring politicians and contending powers. This conflict of sections will progress until it be transferred from the halls of the national legislature to the battle-field.