The evening Argus. [volume] (Rock Island, Ill.) 1861-1871, 1867-08-01
Montgomery Blair and the Radical Pro
gramme.

gramme.
Ex-postmaster general Blair, the intimate
and favorfte official of President Lincoln
made a speech in Virginia, in which he pro-
nounced Gen. Grant an opponent of negro
suffrage and thus portrayed the radical pro-
gramme;
The programme of the radicals is plain.
They mean to command the government by
military power and corruption. They will
set up Brownlow and Fletcher governments
in the ten states in the electoral college, in
virtue of their military power. They count
upon the tariff and use Of. the public money
and party machinery to secure sufficient
number 81. .he northern states which added
to the votes cast By Brownlow, Fletcher,
Sickles, Pope, Sheridan, and other military
satraps, viii give them control of the govern
ment. The iimsy veil of negro suffrage
pretended as a protection of the ballot from
.'chief traitors under which is concealed the
naked sword with which the twelve states
is to be ruled, is too transparent to require
to be stripped off. Old Thad. Stevens, the
real master-spirit of radicalism long ago de-
clared that mean whites could be got at the
south to organize and lead the negroes III
the interest of those controlling the govern
pecuniary advantages they would receive.
For controlling they look to the antagonisIn
of race-the freedmen's bureau-promise of
confscated lands. There is not feature in
the whole radical system to redeem it from
adherence. 1t is system of the foulest cor
ruption relying altogether on the basest
and most mercenary motives to receive sup
port. There are few sentimentalists whe
urge negro suffrage from better motives,
/ who are anxious to have their votes counted,
IN the idea that in that way only they can be
elevated In the scale Of humanity and escape
slavery, who construe the declaration ofinde-
pendence, not as Jefferson, its author, and
those who adoptedit construed it, to mean
that men OF the same nations were of right
equals among themselves and in their owl,
4 nation, but as abolishing and confoundino
nationalities, and establishing universal
citizenship, so that Hottentots, Cannibals
COOLIES, Indians, Africans, if born in oul
midst, are born to the same rights o
citizenship with those of us WHOSE
fathers acquir ed the country am
gave it its government and laws, although
those persons so born in our midst are tn
. descendants of those brought here as slave
and are by their nature utterly incapable Q
) disoharging the duties or bearing the bun
dens incident 10 full citizensshhip of such
state? The fact that no such citizen
ship is acknowledged for the negro in an
! state of the Union out of New England, an,
there only because they are too few in nun
Der to exert,a particle Of influence, prove
that it is not upon any such principle of ma
Gonal Justice that it is proposed to count tn
votes of the negroes of the south. Mr.. Sun
5 ner, who seems to me to be by far the mos
| tofa 81 49,. 4.
tended for the establishment of this prime
2 pie, and has again offered at this session tn
i bill which he had repeatedly. presented b,
e fore, to give the negro that right of suffrae
t universally, but his efforts have met with n
= countenance in congress, mot because congress
l has no power to legislate with respect
+ suffrage in the states-fer neither he nc
1 his associates regard that as an objection
s | but simply because they dare not attempt t
e impose negro suffrage upon the norther
states. This they know can only be don
: by military power, and the time has not y,
t come to exert military power at the nortl
e As it is only whensthey exert thatpower tai
2 the negro vote is counted it is after all b,
e the exertion of the military power, and til
4 | suffrage is sham suffrage; and it is an elet
: ton in no better sense than if they counte
I the cattle in the fields in support of radica
| ism. And the negroes themselves, if the
could be made to understand that there is
o negro suffrage where any reai7 suffrage
I tolerated, would become sensible that the
:. are but tools in the hands of new ma
Z ters, directing them for their own selfish END
/ and objects, with no thought or wish fe
!, their welfare. They are but the maehIner
: or agency adopted by the military, whic
2 controls 1T and supports it to carry its wi
$ into effect 1t is simply military govern
ment; and the radicals, as / have Shown, rt
J sort to the device Of counting the negroe