Public Ledger

RADICAL RECONSTRUCTION.

The Democrats of Georgia are talking of calling a Convention, to convene at Atlanta on the 4th of January. This meeting is to take into consideration the peculiar condition of the State, and the adoption of a line of policy to be pursued by the party under the existing emergency. The extraordinary action of Congress in treating Georgia as a conquered province, after the State had been reconstructed and re-admitted into the Union, calls for some just protest on the part of her citizens that may reach the ear and understanding of the right-thinking Northern people. The gravest apprehensions are now being aroused as to how far Congress may and will dare carry their selfish, partisan schemes under the plea of reconstruction. If loyalty means a profession of Radical principles merely, then it is time that every one should understand as much. If it is a just cause for turning a State out of the Union because she did not choose to elect a Radical Governor, the people of Tennessee are interested and would be informed of the fact. No doubt Georgia will quietly succumb to the bayonet power of Congress, and consent to ratify the Fifteenth Amendment, or do any other act of degradation. The people think they have their hands in the mouth of the Radical lion, and the best way to get rid of the beast, is to appease him. But can he be satisfied? Will the submission of the people, for the present, to the conditions imposed be sufficient to hold in check the aspirations of Congress? If the long list of odious enactments and disgraceful conditions are complied with, then we doubt whether our enemies would be content to let us alone. While we would not appear as dictating the course to be pursued in this State, yet we would suggest and advise the people to stand firm on principles only known to be right, and let the storm sweep over as it will. The more we yield the more will be required. Each demand made will be a little more exacting, until the liberties of the people will all be gone. None but the hand of God can avert the coming tempest that has been gathering for four years. If the partisan peccadilloes of the Congressional rump should require that the oldest and most clearly defined rights of the people of the Government be given up, we of the South would not dare raise an objection. Dominant Radicalism is now the master of this country, and everything and every principle of right, justice and truth must give way before the selfish desires of the monster. If we comply in every way with the requirements of the national Government will it bring permanent quietude and protection? We think not, as whatever is conceded on our part serves only to increase and cement the power of this worse than Jacobin dynasty. We don't believe that such a state of affairs can exist long, for the men who conduct them must eventually be consigned to a righteous punishment at the hands of the people. Revolutions never stand still or go backward, but ever onward. The final termination of the present evils will be found to end in the life of the Republic. The responsibility of such ruinous consequences be upon the heads of a set of traitors who term themselves Loyalists.