Des Arc weekly citizen., 1867-11-30
Nearly all of them were Negroes. 7


 Such is the burden of the dispatches that reach us from the South in which the announcement of the number of votes cast at the reconstruction" elec- tions is made. So many votes were boiled here to-day, says the telegram from Richmond, or Savannah, or Talla- hassee, or Raleigh; and "nearly all of them were negroesl' is the inevitable conclusion. Why is this? Are they, then, no longer white men in the South l? Where are the countrymen and kins- men of Washington and his compeers, so many of whom poured out their blood like water for the establishment of republican government on this con- tinent? And where are the statesmen whose talent shed luster upon the re- spcctive State Legislatures, and upon the National Congress, only few years ago? Have they, and the noble and intelligent Caucasian constituencies they represented, become, by some strange fatalitN suddenly extinct, leav- ing in their places only the members of that inferior race who were their slaves to exercise the rights of franchise and control the destinies oftheir States
 !" Nearly all of them negroesl" The thought is sickning that elections should be held for that most serious and important business, the formation of State constitutions, and negroes inferior,uninstructe ,imbruted negroes -elect the men deputed to the task. Great God! What is the wretchedness of that condition to which the Southern States are brought when such interest are committed to such hands. It can not be hoped that such electors should choose delegates at all worthy of the high trust. It cannot be otherwise than that ignorance, and prejudice, and vice should predominate in conventions so constituted. Only negroes, and white men still more ignoble and less deserving of respect than negroes, can be chosen by such constituencies.
 "Nearly all of them negroes" Not quite all of them! Who arc the rest? Are they whites who, mindful of the glorious past, and animated by just consciousness of the superiority of their race, are struggling desperately against mighty odds to save themselves from being overwhelmed by sea of dark ness? Tor are they not, rather, chiefly dastardly home rencgades, and the fair-skinned wretches who have come from the North to help along in the di- abolical work of establishing negro su- prcmacy over the fairest portion of the American Union?
 Surely never was greater outrage perpetrated against freemen than Rad icals have perpetrated against theSouth- ern people in their reconstruction poli- cy. That policy deliberately sets out to give the negroes control of the South ern States. Under it the enfranchised freedmen arc so certain of carrying all before them that. as a general thing, even those whites who would be suf- fercd to vote do not choose to partici- pate in the mockery, especially as they know the whole plan to be irregular and unconstitutional.
 Under our system of government each of the ten Southern States where the mockery of reconstruction is now being performed is already possessed of as regular constituted State govern mcnt as in New York or Ohio, and every white citizen above the age of twenty -one is fully qualified voter. In no one of the ten Southern States is the negro qualified voter, and in no States of the South have those who are qualified voters taken any steps for the calling of convention to amend the existing constitution, or form new one. All acts of Congress, or its agents interfering with the rights of the citi- zens of the States in such matters are absolute usurpations. It follows, as matter of course, that these reconstruc- ton elections by which conventions to form negro-supremacy constitutions arc to be called, and at which "nearly all the voters are negroes" are, consti- tutionally and rightfully considered, wholly void.
 How despicable is that Radical party which has deliberately adopted such method of perpetuating its power. Not content with inaugurating mili- tary despotism to prevent the citizens of sovereign States from exercising those privileges in the enjoyment of which they are guaranteed alike by the Federal Constitution and their State Constitution, and not satisfied with re- fusing them representation in Congress and destroying their state governments, it deliberately resorts to the expedient of making white men subject to ne- grocs--of inaugurating negro domina- ton and negro supremacy.
 History records instances where, for purposes of power and personal ag- grandizement interruptions and am- bilious men have compelled the weaker and in some respects inferior race to wear the yoke of the stronger and su- perior; but never has instance yet been recorded of those who, from similar motives. cnslaved those of their own race and country to race vastly in ferior in all respects. Rome subdued the Volscians, and William and his Normans made the Saxons subject to their will but it has yet to be written that the Radicals, in the attempt to