Nashville Union And American

AND POLICY,

No wonder the organs were all dumbfounded by the Arkansas message. They had just written articles laudatory of Poland's committee report recommending no interference, when Grant came down on them unawares, like a thunderclap. Besides, how could they foresee that Grant was about to go back on his own proclamation of the 14th of last May, which opened with:

'Whereas, certain turbulent and disorderly persons, pretending that Elisha Baxter, the present Executive of Arkansas, was not elected, have combined together with force and arms to resist his authority; and whereas said Elisha Baxter has been declared duly elected by the General Assembly of said State, as provided in the Constitution thereof and ought by its citizens to be considered the lawful Executive thereof.'

This same proclamation closed as follows:

'Now, therefore, I, Ulysses S. Grant, President of the United States, do hereby make proclamation and command all turbulent and disorderly persons to disperse and hereafter submit themselves to the lawful authority of the said Executive.'

How could the organs know that, nine months after, Grant would 'venture' the opinion that Joseph Brooks was elected, after having thus branded him as a 'turbulent and disorderly person?' But Grant now has a policy, and there need be no more blundering on the part of the faithful. The Washington specialist of the New York Herald portrays the situation thus:

The message was certainly a bomb-shell. It was written by the President himself, and was sent in by him without being previously laid before the Cabinet. 'It is as distinctly a piece of 'my policy' as any message of Andrew Johnson's,' said a Republican to-day, adding: 'The President seems more and more to assume Johnson's attitude of opposition to Congress. He does not speak so much of 'my policy' as his predecessor, but in Southern affairs he is as little inclined to defer to Congress, to wait upon its information or directions, or to give up his own policy, as Johnson was.'

Even the New York Times tells us that 'the Republicans talk very little about the message. It cannot be said to have met with a very cordial reception from them, and no one imagines any action will be taken in respect to Arkansas affairs at this session. The fact that Brooks was defrauded of his office by Republicans, and not by Democrats, in the first instance, alters greatly the moral if not the legal aspects of the question. The World correspondent intimates that the joint action of both houses virtually forbidding his interference would probably deter Grant, but that nothing else will stand in his way. New England Senators say the Republicans might as well abandon all attempts to carry New Hampshire or Connecticut this spring. But a Washington special, of the 9th, to the New York Tribune lays bare Grant's ultimate policy in its most alarming light:

It is the first gun of a new and most dangerous policy. In explaining to a friend to-day the occasion of this message, Gen. Grant said, that while in terms it referred to Arkansas alone, it had, in his opinion, been made necessary by information he had received from other parts of the South, which fully convinced him of the purpose of the white people of the States in which the Republicans still retain power to overthrow the reconstruction State Constitutions. As the adoption of these Constitutions was essentially the condition on which the Southern States were readmitted into the Union, the President believes that it is the duty of Congress to make provision in advance to meet these grave issues as they arise. In other words, the President seems to think that it is the duty of Congress to prevent by positive laws any material changes in the Constitutions of the reconstructed States, and he hints that if the legislative branch of the Government does not do this he shall.