The evening Argus. [volume] (Rock Island, Ill.) 1861-1871, 1865-10-28

LAX Win your republican nelgnD DORIS ABOUT
these things, and ask them to try it once.
WHAT DID THEY DOs
Will some one be good enough to tell us
what the delegates who attended the late ne
gro-suffrage and Maine-law county conven-
ton had to do with bringing out the candi-
dates for county Offices? They had nothing
at all to do with it, except to obey the orders
of the court house clique, and 60 through
the form of ratifying the nominations previ-
ously agreed on by the clique. And that is
all the mass Of the republican party will ever
have to do with making nominations, until
they beat that clique by voting down its
candidates. No young, aspiring, ambitious
and we'll qualified republican will ever be
permitted TO hold any Office in this county
| who does not hold his nose on the grindstone
of the court house clique. as long as that
clique holds power. The only chance for
such men to rise is to vote down every one
of the clique candidates. They have no
principle, except to get Office. They would
not permit the convention which ratified their
nomination to pass a resolution of any kind.
They dare not avow their principles before
the people, but they profess all things to all
men, not having the moral courage to avow
one set of opinions for all. Are such candi-
dates worthy the support of free aud intelli-
gent men? By no means. Let the people
join together, then, and support the demo-
e-a.io -nion and administration candidates,
and thus rebuke the political trcksters who
make Office trade and who control their
party only to make money out of it.
President johnson on Negro-sudrage and
Reconstruction.
Our abolition contemporaries affect to de
rive good deal of consolation from the senti
ments uttered by President johnson in his
interview with Major Stearns, Of Massachu-
sets. The publication OF the conversation
held at this meeting has the endorsements of
the president, the public is therefore justified
in assuming its entire correctness. People
will thank him for this exposition, for it car
ries with 1t official weight, and gives plain
answers upon many matters In his policy
that have hitherto been in dispute,
Divested of all superfuitles, the points of
importance in President Johnson's converse
ton as follows:
States, by the treason of u portion of their
citizens, cannot be taken out of the Union
Reconstruction is work which belongs to
the people of the interested states The cen
trail government Is not the prime mover In
this labor, but simply the assistant;
The elective franchise is a political, not a
natural right; and is matter under the ex-
elusive control of the respective states;
If Mr.. johnson were in his own state Ten
nessee, he would favor the gradual extension
of suffrage to the negro;
Universal suffrage now would result in a
war between whites and blacks.
These are substantially the points of impor-
lance involved in the remarks of President
johnson, and, upon a close inspection of
them, we fail to see the ideas upon which
both conservative and radical republicanism
build their consultations. In the teachings of
either the one or the other of the two factions
of repubicanism, it is asserted that the south
ern states are out of the Uuion by virtue of
their acts of secession that reconstruction
should be done by the central government;
that the elective franchise is the inherent
right of all men and that universal suffrage
should be forced on the south by the action
of the general governments. Every one of
these propositions is in direct contradiction
to those enunciated by the president
There then only remains Mr.. Johnson's re-
mark with reference to negro suffrage in Ten.
nessee in which cannot be found any appear
ance of opposition to democratic ideas and
sympathy with repu blicanism. Concerning
this, the New York Tribune says:
oAs Presid ent Johnson knew this conversation
was to be made public and certified to it's cor
reetness, 1t will probably modify the new-found
enthusiasm of the demo cratic party for the ad-
mInistratiOn.''
Let us see how far this utterance of the
president is opposed to democratic teachings.
Upon this question of negro suffrage the
democratic party in the north stands exactly
as it did upon the question of slavery. As
party, 1t never committed itself either for or
against the existence of that institution All
that democracy said officially was. that the
regulation of slavery was matter resting ex
clusively with the states in which it existed.
There were democrats who believed slavery
right, and as many others who believed it |
wrong. They disagreed a. individuals as to |
its moral character; but they united in the |
belief that Illinois or Massachusetts, had |
nothing to do with slavery in South Carroll. |
ma
Upon the question of negro suffrage there
is likely to be. among the individuals of the
democratic party, greater unanimity of