The tri-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1866-1868, 1866-09-25

1t will thus be perceived that the ten ex-
cluded States, in accepting the one alterna-
tive OF universal suffrage will secure sixty
one members in the House of Representa-
tlves, and that by adopting the other alterna-
tive of limiting the suffrage to the white
population they will only got forty members
"a dead loss of twenty-one. This, among
the Southern politicians, may seem hard
condition either way; but as it is evident
that the North will not consent to a repre-
sentation of the Southern blacks in Congress
without suffrage, the Southern States must
make their election upon this amendment,
one way or the other. Nor can we under
stand why there should be any hesitation,
under the present state of things, in the
choice of the alternative. There is pre-
JUDGE OF two hundred years growth in the
South against the admission of the blacks
among the Southern whites to a footing of
political equality. This prejudice cannot be
removed by Congressional legislation nor
even by constitutional amendment. 1t
must be left to the changing influences of
time. Very well. Even so this amendment
proposes to leave it. Every State concerned
has the choice of admitting to or excluding
from the suffrage its black population; and
as this prejudice against the blacks is the
predominant idea among the ruling Southern
whites, their only course is to accept the
amendment with the distinct understanding
among themselves that they will exclude the
blacks from the ballot box an toto for the pre-
sent, submitting to the loss of their repre-
sentation in Congress.
We recommend this course to the South
ern States with the adoption of the amend
meht They Will not in reality lose much in
the House in losing twenty members, consid-
ering the overwhelming Northern majority
against them in that body. By coming in
with even forty members they will certainly
put an end to the power of the radicals to
carry their measures by a two thirds vote,
and we doubt not that upon their extreme
issues the radicals will be left in a minority,
with the union of the Northern democrats
and moderate republicans with the Southern
members.
On the other hand, in the Senate these
Southern States remain by this amendment
untouched. 1t is in the Senate, too, that the
South, In any event, must henceforth look
tor Its balance OF power in Congress; and
In the Senate it can at once gain this bal
ance OF power by the adoption of this con-
stitutional amendment. The struggle be-
tween the President and Congress upon this
question of reconstruction should have en-
ded on the part of the President with the
passage amendment by two-thirds vote in
each House, inasmuch as this is the vote
which makes a bill law of the land over
the veto of the President. His cooperation
now in behalf of the speediest possible rati-
fcation of the amendment is his only true
course. 1t offers him the same advantages
over the radicals which it offers the exclu-
ded States, and his object and their object
now paramount to all others ought to be
the full representation of all the States in
Congress on the basis of this constitutional
amendment during the approaching session.
M Y. Herald.