The Southern Policy

l'h(re was a meeting at Holyoke, Maas., m Friday night, fiays the New ïorfe World, to approve the policy of the administration, nnd President Seelye, of Amherst, delirered an :uldress ou the occasion, which is remarkable fw the f act that it justifies the Southern policy of President Hayea on the simple logical gronnd that this policy jiist in itself and slionkl have been pursiied from the begiuning. This position involves e aokuowledgnient that the reconstructiou policy ongmally choIsen by the Eepublican party aml maintaiued so long at uoh cost wati essentially wroDg and nnwse. We think that President Seelye in taking tuis stand, bhows his USO honcsty ahd strong common seuse. It is ueelea for the supporters of the administration to attempt to show that it3 Southern policy would have been -wrong a year ago, wnile it is altogether good &HA t}" to-dav. It is absurd to mam tain tíiaí f wñnd gv:tem put in opera ionsix montiis teymd a certam limit ecomes un sound. TSmekte, all whO ;re heartily in ajcord wiüi President layes should fÜDg aside the pïrteuso hat his course is a mere matter of eïpelienoy or a piece of political experiment, md adopt the manly and honest easoning of President Seelye, even hoügh they are in consequenoe obhged o concede tliat the Republican party has )een wrong in the past and the Deniocratic party right. The tlinory of stevens, Sumuer and their compeers, Jiat the Southern States had forfeited ill tlieir rights by rebellion, was a nar:ow and a bigoted one. lts couseluences- the establishment of military overnments, the attempts at reconitruction by means of the negro vote, the erection af the color-line and ;he strife and corrnption incident o carpet-bag government- -frere poitical evils that threatened ihe whole country with ruin. Let ;hi8 be conceded, since the supreme test of all policiep, time, has proven the weakness of the Republican reconstruc;ion policy. Let it be conceded tb at Jiose who maintained that the war ivas waged to restore the authority of the constitution in all parts of the Union, and not to deprive any pottion of its due representotion- for the lif e of States and not for their death- were right from the flrst in acknowledging that they are right now. As coming from an opponent of the Democracy, we quote with a satisfaction f ree from any mixture of malicious triumph this plain statement by President Seelye: Southern rebellion and in treating it as a rebellion to its close, then when those rebels were conquered the States in which the rebellion had been waged had just as much right to a representaron ín the National Congress and just as much right to partake iu H the privileges of the NaUonal Government ns they ever had. And this I not ouly now believe to be trae, but I believed it at the time, and publicly declared it then, and, had it then been taken as the public policy of the natioD, I still believe we should have escaped both the blunders and the crimes which have made our reconstruction of the Union so painf ui and so perilous. But we did not take it. Had Mr. Lincoln lived it might have been otherwise, but, when the lines of administraticn dropped from his hands, there was uo one to take them up and hold them wisely. We said these States were no longer States in the Union. We remanded tliem to a quasi territorial condition. We sent them military governors from Washington. We contradicted all our doctrine in the war. We thus took a false position in the eyes of the world, and a position which the South itself feit to be bitterly and keenly unjust. Instead of prcceedmg in tlio conrse fittcd to allay the prejudice which had been engendered and the passions which had been excited in the war, and which might have shown us that ' peacc has her victories as well as war,' we conld hardly have devised a better way than the one adopted to keep up the hatred and increase the hostihty which had already brought suoh lamentable results to both sections of the nation."