The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1866-01-17

these original vacancies and those of the fifteen
surgeons We would like to hear an explanation.
Free Negroes and the Naturalization Laws.
From Ge Times.
There are certain advocates of negro suffrage
who profess to be willing under certain condi-
tons, to see the Southern States restored to their
true position in the Union without requiring
them to assent to general enfranchisement of
the negro population. Thus a city journal,
published mainly in the interest of the blacks,
says:-"0nly render it certain that an honest,
industrious, thrifty, intelligent negro shall not
be prescribed merely because of his color or
race, and we will agree to almost any thing" If
the journal from which we quote-speaklng, as
IL Is presumed to dc, tor very considerable radi-
cal party-is sincere in proposing to compromise,
there ought TO be little difficulty in coming to
terms. All that our contemporary processes to
ask for his special clients is provided for in the
Naturalization bill now before Congress.
As far as Congress has the power of enfran-
Chisement, that bill gives TO the nativeborn
negro the same privileges of citizenship as if he
were white instead of black. 1t proposes to
amend whatever Congressional acts OF naturali-
zation now exist wherein The distinction of race
or color is drawn between the two classes of our
population. Wherever the explanatory term "a
free white person" occurs IN any of these sta
tutes, this bill provides that such term shall be
stricken out. So,that hereafter all persons born,
or to be born, within the limits and under the
jurisdiction of the United States, are declared
citizens, and entitled to all rights and .privi-
leees as SUCH
This is the broad ground on which conservative
men believe that the advocates of negro enfran-
chsement may meet. 1t is safe ground, because
it is constitutional; it is liberal ground mas
much as it forever abolishes that arbitrary dis.
tinction in our naturalization laws founded upon
color; and it is fair compromise ground between
ha anil ortu nd hu hp
President and the party OF centrallzation. Ii
there be any halfway meetngground between
the two parties, it ought to be found in these
proposed amendments to the naturalization laws.
Those who desire to go further and provide
special enactments Tor the government OF every
parish district in the South, overlook the fact
that the same authority enacting municipal
system for the South would be compelled to
establish local executors to carry 1t into prao-
tice. The details of State and county legislation
for every portion of the late Confederacy might
possibly be arranged as well in Washington as
in the special local tiles concerned. But if even
the barest semblance of State Government is to
continue to exist, the local authorities would
have in theTend to be trusted to give the laws
effect. 1t IS not difficult to understand how
such laws would be executed, or rather how
they would fail utterly of being executed, unless
at the point of Federal bayonets.
The duty which Congress and the National
Executive owes to the emancipated slaves is
duty entirely compatible with the full and
speedy remission of every question of local con-
cern, including that of negro suffrage, to the
States that have been temporarily alienated. In
such provision for the recognition of the citi-
zenship of the native-born blacks as is offered in
the Naturalization bill, the freedman will have
thrown over him the same protection that any
white citizen can lay claim to either at home or
abroad. He will have an equal standing with
the latter before our National Legislature and
the National Executive. And with this vantage
ground he IL left to work his way out Of what
ever temporary political disabilities the existing
laws of his State may impose upon him.
The assurance OF national protection and
national eccgnition which the black citizen thus
acquires on the one hand, and the tutelage
which on the other hand he undergoes while
working his way by industry and intelligence
towards local enfranchisement ought to be alike
advantageous to himself and to the whole COM
munity. He is at once assured that he has GER
tain inslienable rights as citizen of the repub-
lie, and encouraged to labor and to selt-improve-
ment, which will hasten the day Of his partIci-
patton in the rights and duties which belong to
the possession of the suffrage. If any fairer
ground of compromise is likely to be found on the
subject of early reconstruction, we have not
heard of it,