Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1866-05-08
The Radicals.


| into one civil war. Is it unreasonable to sup
pose that they would not stop at plunging it in
TO another! On the contrary, that party was
less radical, less violent, less Revolutionary in
1860 than it is at this hour. The history of
Black Republicanism arms its workings with
suspicion, and may, therefore, be held as con-
current testimony In support of the inference
which points, in the events of the hour, to it's
intention to carry Its purposes even at the cost
OF another rebellion"
The majority in Congress has continued for
several months past to obstruct the restoration
| OF the Union, That outrage on the country has
been committed at the bidding of desperate ne
cesslties of party. Determined now that thew
are in power, to hold it at all hazards the
Black Republicans are plainly prompted in their
hostility to reunion, with view to the next
election for the Presidency With eleven States
In solid mass against them, they will never
consent to enter on that contest and hence
have they determined that, if they cannot di-
vide the vote OF these States by giving the cleo
tive franchise to the negroes, they will exclude
those States from the Electoral College by de-
nyll5 their restoration to the Union Ali the
| orles about rights of man, universal suffrage.
protection of the freedman, and all that kind of
thing, sum up at this moment, in the case of
the Black Republicans, to neither more nor less
| than the cries under which they seek to per-
petuate their control of the Government.
The Southern people, it may be set down as
positively determined, will not consent to give
the negroes OF their States the elective franchise
Only an amendment to the Constitution can
confer ON Congress the authority to force black
suffrage upon the South and the massage of
! suon an amendment may De regarded as insuf-
terab!e. The dirision of the Southern vote in
the Electoral College may be seen thus to be
| lmpractlcable; and, therefore, must we con-
clude that the designs ofthe Black Republicans
narrow themselves down actually to the exclu-
sion of the Southern States from all voice in the
next election for the Presidency.
Two years and half have to elapse before
the ensuing contest for the chair of Washing
ton. The party in power do, therefore, grave
injury to the country in their determination to
hold it during an interval so long in state of
political excitement. Terrible as that view of
the case is in fact, it pales into harmlessness
before the other terrors which follow in the
train OF that traItorous design of radicalism.-
Events have already shaped themselves suffi-
GENTLY clearly to show that parties will enter in
to the Presidential election Of 1868 sharply de-
fined. And the breach between the President
and Congress now beyond all hope of patchwork
compromise, these two branches of the Govern
ment be the nominees who they may, will be
pltted against each other In the struggle, front
to front
The Democracy and the Radicals are separa-
ted from each other now by memories of out
rage. The relations ofparties amongst us were
perhaps, never before so characterized by tenn
per, The anger which has already been stirred
up by Congress against the President is placed
! under circumstances which cannot fail of kind
ling it into fame. Violent disregard for the
Constitution on the one hand, and determined
devotion to what remains of it on the other, We
toes and lawless enactments will pass between
these two branches of the Government until
even the President himself, in his defense of
| the lnstituf1ops of the country, shall have be-
come inhamed with patriotic passion. With
two branches Of the Government battling in
bitter hostility at the head of two parties sepa-
rated by memories of wrong, we may look upon
the Presidential election Of 1868 as, under any
circumstances, brimful of danger to the public
repOse.
Suppose the President and the Democracy in
a majority in 1863. that majority made up of
votes from the South. The Black Republicans,
who are now excluding Southern votes from
Congress with the view Of excluding them from
the Electoral College, will, in that event, claim
the Presidency But is it to be supposed that
the Democrats and the President will acquiesce
in that awless pretension? Even the Repub-
| lican traitors themselves know that neither Mr.
johnson nor his supporters will submit to such
a usurpation without, if necessary a struggle
of blood; and those same Republican traitors,
knowing this, are preparing deliberately to meet
it by placing General Grant at their head, in
order to divide the allegiance of the army !
The whole history of the party, the revolution
ary temper by which it is actuated at this mo-
ment the only ineligible explanation of its OPP
position to the restoration Of the Union, all
combine to warn the friends of peace and order
that the Radicals have entered on a struggle for
power which, like that Of 1860, may lead to
civil war.-N T. Neus.