March 27, 1861 – Reconstruction! How it is to be Accomplished

From all the evidence now before us, we are satisfied that the Black Republicans are looking forward to a reconstruction of the Union, and that the failure of Lincoln to inaugurate a coercive policy against the seceded States is to be accounted for only upon the hypothesis that he desires to effect, by seduction, what he doubts his ability to do by force. He has been persuaded, by the Union howlers of the Border slave States, that those States, in any event, will adhere to the Union, and that it will be easy to counteract the efforts of the secessionists in those States by some nominal but empty concession to slavery such as the ridiculous proposition to amend the Constitution so as forever to prevent Congress from abolishing slavery which shall serve as the pretext for “submission.” He expects, further, by a judicious distribution of official patronage among the Southern traitors in the Border slave States, to build up and establish in them an organized Black Republican party, in full sympathy with that party in the Northern States. The Louisville Journal, the Memphis Bulletin, the Knoxville Whig, and other papers of that stump, have already shown, by their recent outgivings, that they are ready, willing, and eager, to lend their aid to the promotion of Lincoln’ schemes, and to Incite their people, if they ran, to imbrue their hands in the blood of their brethren in the Confederate States. When the Border slave States shall have been firmly fastened to the Union, under the domination of a Southern Black Republican party, Lincoln will turn his attention to the seceded Status, he is fool enough to believe that secession is unpopular in the Confederacy, and that our people, if they had a chance to vote upon the, question, are so besotted with a blind love for the Union that they would incontinently leap to his embrace. He gloats over every lying paragraph that appears in tho submission journals of the Southern States, purporting to disclose what is alleged to be “the settled discontent” of the people of the Confederate States; and he imagines that he will have to wait but a little while before that discontent will take the form of a counter-revolution, when he anticipates that the torch of civil war will flame from South Carolina to Texas, and that it will be easy for the Federal Government of the United Stales to interpose and turn the scale in favor of those who desire to see the shackles of Black Republicanism riveted upon the States which now compose the Confederacy. “The plot is a very good plot” The chief difficulty about it is, that it is based upon a total misapprehension of the sentiments and wishes of our people. They are patriotic and intelligent They comprehend the purposes of Lincoln and his myrmidons, snd they have sagacity enough to perceive that reconstruction, upon such terms as Black Republicanism proffers, involves, on their part, more of wrong and humiliation than any civilized people on earth have ever yet submitted to.

The Oxford Intelligencer, Oxford, MS

Comments

No comments yet. Why don’t you start the discussion?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.