The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1866-04-27

The Admission OF Colorado and the Ex-
clusion OF tho Southern States.
The Senate has reconsidered the bill which
was rejected in that body several weeks ago
for the admission of Colorado Territory as
State Of the Union, and has passed the
measure by . vote of 10 to Is One-third
Of the Senators were absent or paired off,
What the result would have been upon a
full vote we cannot tell but the vote
actually cast against the bill, including Bucka-
lew, Davis, Hendricks, Guthrie, McDougall
and Riddle, democrats; and Doolittle, Ed
munds, Foster, Grimes, Morgan, Poland and
Sumner, republicans, radicals and conserva-
tives, shows that opinions and parties on the
subject were considerably mixed.
The democrats and conservative republicans
opposed the measure mainly on the ground
that an unsettled population Of fifteen
or twenty thousand is hardly sufficient to
justify the admission Of a Territory as State,
when the popular ratio for Representative in
Congress is hundred thousand. The radicals
who opposed the bill did so because negroes,
in the State constitution Of Colorado, are ex-
cluded from the right of suffrage. Mr.. Sum-
ner, therefore, in this matter, has at least the
merit of consistency, against all temptations to
60 the other way. The radicals who sup
ported and passed the bill were, it is under
stood, controlled by the impression that the
admission of Colorado would give two addi-
tional members to the radical strength in the
Senate, although in this matter they may
perhaps be mistaken.
1t is supposed that, with the approval of the
Reconstruction Committee, this bill will pass
the House. Assuming that it will, what is the
position in which this radical Congress will
place itself by this act? 1t will stand in the
position of party which has admitted Terri
tory with floating population of fifteen or
twenty thousand as State, with q constitution
excluding the negro from the ballot box,
while eleven Southern States, embracing four
of the original thirteen which founded the
mainly because they have not conceded this
thing of negro suffrage. The inconsistency of
this distinction is apparent, and its injustice
stands out in bold relief, in presence of the fact
that the cotton furnished from the excluded
Southern States since the close of the war, for
the markets of the world, foets up the magnif-
cent sum, in greenbacks, in round numbers, of
four hundred millions of dollars-equal to three
hundred millions in gold-for the relief of the
national credit, the national currency and the
federal taxpayers of the United States, from
one end of the Union to the other.
We grant that these three hundred millions
in gold were saved to the Union cause and the
national treasury by the navy, In the late
blockade of the Southern ports; but we may
still secure three or four hundred millions more
thus year, in all probability, in Southern pro-
ducts, by the prompt admission into Congress
of the excluded States; for this admission would
re-establish in those States the confidence,
security, activity and systematic industry neces-
sary to the full development even Of the cot
ton, tobacco and other crops that have been
planted. But if Colorado, with State consti-
tuition against negro suffrage, is admitted into
the Union, we hope we shall hear no more of
this demagogue cry Of the radicals, that negro
suffrage must in some way be secured in vir-
ginia, North and South Carolina, and so on,
before those States can safely be reinstated in
Congress. BY the late vote Of the Senate
negro suffrage is confessed to be only o party
trick, and the House, in sustaining it, will at
least put an end to the false pretence of radi-
cal solicitude for the negro's political rights.