Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1867-10-10

roy In the recent Democratic con-
yention of Massachusetts,, which put in
nomination for Governor scion of the
Adams family, Mr.. Sweetser made some
very telling remarks, in the course of
which he said:
Civil war has had its natural effect
upon the Republican party in Congress.
During the war they had become so
accustomed to disregard the laws that
pertain to peace, that after the war they
could not see what was legal under the
law, or what was just and right and
equitable in the light of conscience and
common reason. do not mean to
speak Of the disregard of constitutional
limits in what Congress has done or IS
endeavoring to do. The very names of
law and constitution $50 corrupted have
the people become by Republican teach
ing) are q stumbling and otfense in a
political discussion | mean only to call
Congress TO answer at the bar of common
sense Congress could not fail to foresee
the inevitable reaction that would take
place in every manner Of trade in the
Northern States, against the financial
excuses Of the war as soon or soon after
the war should cease. There was one
course open to them to prevent excess of
that reaction and consequent danger to
our national credit, and that was to
speedily open new avenues for Northern
trade | say that the Constitution re-
auired Of them a certain course. 1t is
sufficient for their utter condemnation
that common sense also required it.
While there was continued
threat Of confscation and division of
their land among the negroes-while
they we're governed by the bayonet and
not by laws-while Congress was to- day
adopting towards them one scheme of
pression-to morrow another-first q
freedmen's bureau TO interfere between
laborer and land owner, next military
satrapy with power to abrogate all laws,
whether relative to person or property
no man would risk a dollar of his capital
there-and so the South remains to-day
almost the wilderness it was at the close
of the war. Finally, as if to foreclose
forever all hopes that these States will
be prosperous, and will ever aid in the
payment of the debt, Congress has adopt
ed the scheme Of putting the control and
dominion of those States into the hands
of blacks, not one in thousand of whom
is now, or ever will be, so well fitted to
bear the responsibility as the average of
our boys at fourteen years Of age. They
not only propose to enfrsnchise an igno.
rant and degraded minority, but they
also propose to disfranchise an iptelli-
gent and superior majority. BY law they
make a black skin badge of homer, and
erect an aristocracy of ignorance. Do
not understand me as opposed TO the ex-
tension ofthe suffrage az rule or princi-
ple-certainly do not conceive the right
vote to be natural right, and do not
understand any man who speaks of it as
natural right to be speaking anything
but the most arrant nonsense. If it is a
natural right, then it is a right as well TO
the woman and child as to the man OF
tweuty-one years. would use little
practical common sense about the extern
sion of il; | would extend it just SO far
as 1t was safe; would not make a black
skin and ignorance the rule Of quaitica.
ton, and white skin and intelligence
the rule Of exclusion.