The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-05-25


policy OF Congress in reference to the restora-
ton OF the Union to the misapprehensiOn and
prejudice which partisan appeal must neces-
sarily excite. The error is as great on the
part OF the Committee as was the error of that
other Committee which commissioned Judge
Kelley to preach Radicalism to Southern
audiences.
Aside from this defect, the address is oppor-
tune and will be useful. 1t is the nearest APP
proach which is possible to pledge in behalf
of Congress to adhere TO the military recon-
struction scheme as a inality. In this respect
it is a conclusive answer to the vaporings of
the anarchists and the misgivings of Southern
politicians.
The Republican Party and the Negro
Vote The Latest Radical Manifesto.
From The Herald.
The address to the Southern people of the
Union Congressional Republican Committee is
document that may we'll give us pause in
pursuing the thread of reflection upon the
troubles of reconstruction. 1t is intended to
point out to the Southern people what will be
the consequence if the radicals are disap-
pointed by the Southern vote. 1t is warning.
Indications have not been wanting that the
negro vote may yet prove a delusion to the
Republican party-that the party will not find
through SaInbo's new privileges that royal
road to continued and supreme power that
certain leaders look for. Eagerly sought for,
clutched at with an avidity that has already
caused some to overreach themselves and lose
their balance, violating the proprieties of poll
tics, what if it should be a will-o' -the-wisp,
after all What if, having tempted men from
the broad, direct way, and mired them up to
the lips in all the uncleanness of partisan
struggles, it should finally be only deceit of
the political atmosphere, and not the grand
prize they counted upon gainingY Then it
must be shown, intimates the Committee that
the Military bill is not a finality. Then we
must adopt some new plan that will give us
in reality the effectual control we expected
that bill would give us.
We may safely estimate the whole present
vote of the South at twelve hundred thousand
in round numbers. One-third of this is the
negro vote, and thus the white voters of the
South will outnumber the negroes fully two
to one. Upon any just system of reconstruc-
tion, therefore, the political power of the South
will be still overwhelmingly in the hands of
the whites, and the radicals can have no hope
to gain any point by the niger vote except
through division of the white vote. But
the prospect for such division is so dim that
radicals hardly hope for it. Indeed, the very
| prospect that they will secure the united
negro vote renders it the more improbable
that there will be any division of the whites.
! The steps taken to secure the negro are driv-
ing the white man into inevitable opposition.
1t is certain that the negroes can only be rail-
| lied on platform upon which the white men
cannot stand. Extravagant promises have
been made by Republican orato s. and if they
are not kept it is an absolute certainty that
the nigger vote will be demoralized and
scattered; if they are kept if there is any
step towards keeping them, the Repub-
licans will scarcely poll a white vote in
any Southern State. The bad policy of the
Republican party, the headlong precpitancy
of its frantic leaders, have placed it in such a
false position on the great subject of recon
struction, that its promises to the negro are
threats to the white man; and these threats
have driven the white man hopelessly beyond
the radical reach. A prominent Republican in
Virginia sat on jury with five negroes, con
scious that his refusal would have been politi-
| cal capital for the Democrats; but he is now
openly repudiated by the adherents of his
dusky fellow-jurors, his republicanism being
of too mild type for their violent taste. His
proposal for platform ON which whites and
| negroes can stand side by side is secuted as
treason to niger interests. 1t is the same in
the whole South, the law prevailing, as in all
revolutionary times, that there must be nc
moderate measures.
Having thus consolidated its black vote
| and by the same steps consolidated the white
1
largest, the next bad step of the Republican
party viii be to repudiate the settlement il
has already made in so far as it involves the
white vote. 1t will throw overheard the plan
involved in the Military bill on the day when
it becomes certain that the votes given to
white men under that bill will be cast against
it, and overbalance the niger vote. "The
| Republican party" says this last programme
of the Republican committee, ''desires the re-
storation of the Union only on such terms as
shall render ii impossible to involve the coun-
try in sectional strife" Ballot box victories
against the radicals in the South will indicate,
therefore, condition that will render resto-
ration of the Union not desirable to that party.
4 In order to have an assurance of political
millennium says the same document,
"there must be cooperation of the races" and
not only that, but this cooperation must be
"upon the principles which prevail in the
| North. and to which the Republican party is
| fully committed. The point of which is,
| that if the Southern white men do not SEQ
| operate, f" if they do not vote with the niggers
they shall not vote at all, so long as the radi-
| Gals can prevent it. II is not enough for
Southern whites to return; but they must
return on their lznees-they must come in
Republicans or stay out for at the last mo-
mept. when the South has, as it supposes
done all that Is required, and comes to Con
oress for admission, then Congress must be
-. of4 he. nl