Rensselaer Union, Volume 5, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 October 1872 — The Actual Truth About Political Disabilities in the South. [ARTICLE]

The Actual Truth About Political Disabilities in the South.

The supporters of Mr. Greeley have much to say about the political disabilthe South. Next to the calumnies upon the President, this constitutes the chief staple of their talk. They seek to create the impression that the South suffers under a harsh and proscriptive policy, and that, a large body of (he people are disfranchised. Mr. Greeley himself devotes the burden of his speeches to this subject, as though the South were ground under the heels of the Government. Now, what are the facts? Hot a single man is disfranchised, and only about two hundred, all told, embra.cing simply Jeff. Davis and the guiltiest leaders of the rebellion, are preronted from holding office. This is the truth, and the whole truth. Every man who participated in the rebellion can vote just as freely as the staunchest loyalist; Jefl’.,Davis4iimself has precisely.ffile same rights and privileges in this respeefo as General Grant or any other defender of the Union. All the disability of which sb; much is said consists simply in the-fact that Davis, Toombs, Breckinridge, and about two hundred of the prominent chiefs of the rebellion, are disqualified from holding office. Suppose tbe Greeley papers and orators, while declaiming against the disabilities resting upon the* South, were to state tlrese "facts as candor requires them to do, heW weak and pitiful would their argument seem! The whole force of the point would be lost. The people do not believe that the disqualification of the few rebel chiefs from liolding office is any wrong or hardship. They have no specjal desife'fhat the way should be opened for the return of Jeff. Davis to the United States Senate. If the Greeleyites would only state the truth on this point, and think they could make any capital out of it, they are welcome to it. Every rebel, no matter how prominent, who has asked to have his disabilities removed, has had his request granted. The'men now excepted have refused to ask. They insist that the Government shall apologize to them rather than they should apologize to the Government. "What say the people ?— Albany Evening Journal.