The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1866-10-25
Result of the Elections.

the annexed article, embodies our con
ception of the true meaning of the recent
elections in the North, and supports in
the main points the views expressed in
an editorial last week. An earnest dc.
sire to promote healthy public senti,
ment, and avoid moroseness and morbid
dependency, induces us to strengthen our
position by this extract from one of the
ablest and most influential journals of the
South, and we commend it's careful and
considerate tone to the readers of the In
telIigencer.:
It does not sensibly change the politi-
cal condition, and is significant only in
the fact thatit entities the radical Con-
gress to claim that their action has been
sustained by majority of the people in
those States, and encourages the artful
and ambitious leaders of that body to
abate nothing of their audacious attempts
to rule the nation in the interests Of o
sectional party, and in violation of the
Constitution and to impede the patriot
ic efforts of the President to restore the
Union, to re-establish peace under the
purely civil forms which our system of
Government contemplates, and to re-as-
sure the public tranquility by guarantee
ofequal and impartial rights to the citi-
zens of every section of the country.
We confess that this is q deplorable re-
sult, but it is one not unexpected in the
calculations of any one who has closely
observed events for the past few months,
and therefore should not sink those who
hoped for different result in the slough
of dependency, or cause them to relax
in effort to avert from themselves and the
nation the untoward consequences which
may ensue. We do not under-rate the
significance of expression of the popular
sentiment, out as q people we are prone
to magnify the effects Of elections. In
the flush of triumph at the ballot-box,
the successful party exults, and exagger-
ates the Importance of their achieve
ment; while the defeated party suffers a
corresponding depression, and, being in
the mood to concede all that its opponent
claims, gives way to gloomy Vaccinations,
and commences to conjure up horrltylng
images of the future. There is "some-
thing too much of this" and we can per-
ceive no reason in the result Of the recent
elections to indulge the fears that some
express of further and extreme action by
the radicals, either looking to impeach-
ment of the President, or more direct
revolutionary assaults upon the Constitu-
ton, or greater expressions upon the
Southern people. In it there is no ground
to Justify dismissal of all hope that the
Northern people are notutterly insensible
to Justice and magnanimity, and that they
have cast their constitutional obligations
entirely to the winds. 1t does not show
that the masses of the North are prepared
TO support the more reckless Of their lead
ers in the bold schemes OF revolution
which they have promulgated. We think
that any one who so interprets the result
is Welding too readily to the first feelings
of gloom that followa political defeat
and that they will soon see cause TO revise
such an opinion.
1t should be borne in mind that, by the
shrewdncss of radical politicians, the real
issue in these elections has been avoided,
and the popular mind diverted from the
consideration of the main question, which
is the preservation of the Government,
under the Constitution, from theinvidious
dangers which lurk in the licentious abuse
of undelegated power by the party now in
the ascendancy. This grave and really
threatening problem which the people will
have to solve, sooner or later, if they save
the substance of their liberties in this
contest, has been ingeniously concealed
and postponed in the recent canvass. The
people of the North have pronounced no
opinion upon this question fairly and just
ly presented. Their judgment and rea-
son have not been consulted. On the
contrary, they have been lashed into con-
vulsions of passion, and electionecring
has been applied exclusively to their feel
ings and prejudices. Amid a senseless
clamor about "copperheadism," and in
aammatory exhortations against rebels,
and under the influence of fears excited
that by the readmission of the Southern
States to their lawful and rightful status
in the Federal Union, the Government
would again pass under the control OF
those still hostile to its integrity, the un-
scrupulous leaders have contrived to shut
| fe their nefarious schemes to the bottom
of the pack, and cozen many honest and
well-meaning citizens into their support.
These elections, in our opinion, mean this
and nothing more. The effect is detri-
mental to the early return of conserve
tive rule in the counsels of the country,
it is true, but they do not signify delib-
crate support of spirit of revolution,
such as will take form in the impeach-
ment of the President. The boldest and
most wicked of the leaders who have in
cited the popular feeling of the North to
this pitch, upon close calculation Of
Tuesdays figures, will learn, too, that