The South not Restored.
By Editor
OUR Government has committed the serious blunder of releasing Jefferson Davis from confinement, before the restoration of civil order in the Southern States. Without the pressure of any serious demand from the people for his release, it has yielded to the clamor of a few radical humanitarians and the appeals of some Southern sympathizers who have been unceasing in their exertions in behalf of the guilty President of the late Confederacy. As long as our Government held Jefferson Davis286firmly in its grasp, it had in him a hostage for the good behaviour of the Southern people. Instead of keeping only one of the instigators of the rebellion in confinement, others, equally guilty of treason, should have been imprisoned with him. The determination of their cases could then have been governed by the temper manifested in the Southern States. Upon the re-establishment of civil authority in such a form as to secure the control of the States to the loyal, they might safely have been set free. For the South is by no means reconstructed. The problem whether a loyal government can be established in the late rebellious States is still far from solution. The elections of the coming summer can alone show us whether, even under the terms of the reconstruction act, the loyal can obtain and hold the control of those States. It may be necessary yet for our government to apply to the South rigorously repressive measures. Even now Southern society is kept from outbreaks of disorder only by the application of military force. The removal of Mayor Monroe by General Sheridan, the suppression of Governor Jenkins by General Pope, the order of General Sickles compelling the firemen of Charleston to salute the National Flag, are indications of the measures still necessary to secure good order in the Southern States. Simultaneously with the announcement of the release of Davis, the intelligence reaches the press of the murder of a colored Methodist preacher, Lymas McCloud, in South Carolina. John R. Tamblyn, another minister of our church in that State, was assaulted, at the same time, with a bludgeon, and but for the protection given him by five or six negroes, would have been murdered too. True, murder is committed in the North as well as in the South, but in the Southern States it is next to impossible to punish the murderers of loyal men by civil process. The murderer of Lymas McCloud is still at large, and “no one moves to arrest him.” Events have shown already that the conduct of the Southern people is solely governed by the temper which they suppose to prevail among the citizens of the loyal States. When they believed that Mr. Johnson was wholly committed to them, and was master of the political situation, they broke out into violence on every side. The Union men of New Orleans were murdered; a reign of terror, which promised a repetition of the dreadful cruelties practiced upon Southern loyalists during the prevalence of the rebellion, was re-established. Only the firmness of the people and of Congress saved us from the loss of all the precious fruits of the war. Upon the passage of the Reconstruction bill, the chief argument made by the Southern press for its acceptance was, that, unless accepted, worse would come upon the Southern States. Convinced, at last, that the loyal people were determined to make their victory good, and that they were ready for confiscation, if nothing less would serve, the Southern population had just begun to appreciate the situation and to adapt themselves fully thereto. The release of Davis at this juncture seems to be a piece of stupidity, for it does away the salutary impression created by the legislation of Congress. The South is shrewd enough to take advantage of any appearance of wavering on the part of the Government. It is an old Southern tradition that the Northern people are easily fooled, and that the Southerner is the born ruler of this country. Only the teaching of a severity not incompatible with humanity can eradicate this tradition. Our sole guarantee of the peacefulness of Southern society is the ingraining of the conviction in the minds of its people that it is useless for them to struggle against the free States, either with the weapons of war or of political management.—The Methodist.