The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1865-07-03

70 be governed practically By radical Nora-
een majority In Congress - refractory terri
tories, and TO their serious prejudice In every
way, for an indefinite time TO come
On the other hand by oonceding the princi-
pie Of negro suffrage, In addition to the Pres-
dents regulations, the resdmission Of every
State now excluded from Congress ID secured.
The principle in question may be conceded
without much difficulty. We believe that under
the present law of suffrage in Massachusetts
and Connecticut, ell male citizens of all colors,
over twenty-ons years Of age, who can read and
write, are admitted to the ballot box Suppose
South Carolina should adopt this law, would
Massachusetts, or Connecticut have any right to
objeotf To be sure, the great mass Of the
South Carolina blacks would be thus excluded
for time; but under this regulation wide
field would be opened for enterprising Yankee
schoolmasters. But the great point is this
that "human rights" as granted in Massachu-
setts, at the ballot box will carry South Carolina,
by the aid Of Massachusetts votes, back again
into both houses of Congress, and every other
Southern State concerned. Let the responsible
loyal white voters of those States bear it In
mind that slavery and slave codes are abolished;
that their negroes are free, and that if they are
not made the political allies of the Southern
whites they will be used by their Northern
political enemies. Let these things be remem-
bered, we say, and the prejudioes Of race and
CASTE in this broad political view Of the subject,
will not be allowed to stand in the way of the
restoration of the late rebel States to Congress.
There are, be it also remembered, three mil
lions of these emancipated blacks in the South.
In the cotton States they constitute more than
one-half the population. They are now within
reach of the politicians, and, if not appropri-
ated by the South, they will be used by the
Northern radicals, and there 10 no telling to
what extremities the conflict upon the issue Of
political rights between the two races in the
South may thus be carried, it once begun. The
responsible Southern whites, however, may
avoid all troubles in the future by taking this
business into their own hands, and by making
the blacks their political allies and followers.
Before the Northern abolitionists kindled the
fires of sectional agitation of slavery, free
blacks were permitted to vote in several slave
States. Cave johnson, it is said was more
than once returned to Congress from Tennessee
by negro votes. 1t was the Northern agitation of
Southern slavery that shut the door againstn negro
suffrage in North Carolina and Tennessee, and
created all those stringent slave codes and
black laws which have since existed through
out the South. They were adopted for the pro-
lection Of slavery. The same sectional agita-
tons have filed the Southern mind with its
ultra notions Of slavery as q Divine institution,
and of the negro as beneath the smallest politi-
cal privileges.
But what does all this signify now? The ter
rible revolution which has swept away this in
stitution Of slavery, calls for change in all
these things. The Southern whites, in losing
their absolute command over their blacks, and
in having them turned loose upon the commu-
nifty, must now conciliate them. In doing this,
the responsible white class will act wisely in
sitting this rising Northern agitation of negro
suffrage by appropriating it as Southern po-
litical balance of power.