The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-07-01

travellers have not condescended to inform us.
Fro,n me Times
The Republican State Conventions held
within the last few days in Pennsylvania and
Maine, afford timely indications of party feel
ings and purposes in view of the special ses-
sion of Congress.
So far as its regular organizations are con-
cerned, the Republican party has never coun-
tenanced the extreme principles of some of its
leaders When the question of reconstruction
was in its earlier stages, and the proposed Com
stitutional amendment formed the sum of the
demands made by Congress upon the excluded
States, the party conventions in the North and
West accepted that measure as hnality. Had
the South ratified it promptly, the party would
have been pledged by the action of its State
Conventions to hold that ratification conclu-
sive, despite all the dissatisfaction of the radi-
calls. The great body of the party, speaking
through the conventions, ranged themselves
on the side of moderation and conciliation--
content to take the Constitutional amendment
as a guarantee of the future safety to the
Union and the future justice to the freedmen,
which constitute the main ends of the Recon-
struction policy.
The obstinacy of the South rendered other
measures necessary, and the legislation of the
last session was the result. Its increased
strngency grew out of the more urgent re-
quirements of the occasion, as understood by
the Republican party. The objects in view
are still the same; and the means employed
are not more harsh than to the party judg-
ment has seemed necessary for the completion
of reconstruction. The first process-that of
the Constitutional amendment, with its de-
pendence on the voluntary action of the
Southern people-had failed Compulsion was
therefore, substituted for voluntary action
in no vindictive spirit, but under the convic-
tiOn that Congress must do for the South and
the country that which the South unwisely
refused to do for itself
And the party everywhere declares its adhe-
sion to the present scheme of Congress as the
sole basis of reconstruction. Individual radi-
Gals may insist on severer penalties and re-
newed delays. They may threaten further
legislation as preliminary to the readmission
of the South. But the State Conventions
which have been recently held vindicate the
party from the suspicion of bad faith. In
every instance, these conventions have eX-
pressly referred to the acts now in operation
as providing the measures by which they are
prepared to abide. They affirm the justice of
these measures, and to all practical purposes
their fnality. They have nowhere and in no
manner, directly or inferentially, afforded
encouragement to the ulterior measures with
which the country has been threatened.
The Conventions of the Republicans of
Maine and Pennsylvania are notable in this
respect, because their resolutions have this
prepared and adopted with full conscious
ness of the spirit in which Congress will next
week reassemble. The resolutions are firm,
as they have need to be. They assure Con-
gress of the hearty approval of the party to
the full extent of the present.legislation. But
they give no encouragement to'propositions or
discussions tending to reopen the reconstruc-
tion question, undooall, that has been done,
and introduce new-elements of strife and COM
plication. A marked and most honorable
moderation pervades the resolutions of both
Conventions They reveal, indeed, deter
mination to allow Of no triAing on the part of
the South. They are pledge of further sup
port if further measures be ultimately found
essential But in the meantime they sustain
the reconstruction scheme as it is, with can
dor and fairness that should do much towards
oounteracting the misapprehensions to which
the violence of the extremists has exposed the
Republican party.