The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-05-09


of the Republic. The house of Alvarez. built
upon bayonets, rests upon bayonets: and If
Guerrero knows nothing of liberty AT least
il may boast of sort of order and auiet
such as has not elsewhere been esta-
blished upon the ruins of the vioeroyalty
of New Spain. Strange and striking as this
anomalous commonwealth must be admitted
to be, it is less strange and less striking than
the despotism which during the last few years
has been permitted to fasten itself ,inon n
State, not of Mexico, but of the American
Union, and under the administration. not of a
soldier bent on Keeping the peace within his
dominions, but OF fanatic resolved on
disintegrating the fundamental elements of
the society which he curses by his control
The State of Tennessee, which, seventy wears
ago, reasonable Senator vainlv endeavored
to transfer to the possession of the crown of
Spain, has been virtually given over to the
tender mercies of q monarch who rules bv
methods and in temper not unworthy of a
Philip the Second or a Ferdinand the Seventh
The truth as to the present political condition
OF the state OF Tennessee is of so astounding a
character it is ominous of evil to all free in
stitutions in America, and so shocking to
every instinct of justice and humanity, that
no extravaganza of partisan zeal can excuse
the crime OF those who, calling themselves the
friends of freedom and of progress in the
North, contribute in any way to hide this
truth from the public mind.
The question now at issue in Tennessee
between the actual master of that State Gov
ernor Brownlow, and the opposition which has
been organized to his rule, has nothing to do
with the claims of Congress to determine the
methods and the conditions under which the
Union shall be restored. More than year
ago Tennessee passed out of the control of
Congress. ParsOn BrownlOw, who had been
elevated to the supreme authority in that
State by the Federal power, secured his cleo
tion as Governor under an organization of the
State manipulated exclusively by his own
adherents, and now proposes to retain his
place by direct and open suppression of the
popular will While Congress has proceeded
to eniranchise the vast majority of the lately
rebellious populations of the South, no less
than tve-siXths of the white population of
Tennessee are disfranchised by the will of
the small minority represented by Governor
Brownlow, who wields, for the enforcement
of this distranchisement, a regular military
force nearly as large as was the army of the
United States before the outbreak of the civil
war, and who now seeks to CoerCe into his
support the negro populations of the State
upon whom he and his adherents have con-
terred the right to vote, while refusing to
them the right to hold any office whatever,
no matter how humble or unimportant. 1t
would be difficult, indeed, to imagine a more
complete and ingenious scheme for defeating
all the guarantees of republican liberty, than
this which the despot of Tennessee has been
silently suffered to mature under cover of a
noisy and senseless clamOr about "Rebels"
and "Loyalty," "Copperheads' and ''the
flag" Its result so far, has been to enable
man of the worst possible personal char
acter-a brutal bigot, as destitute of political
intelligence as of Christian humanty-tomake
his profound contempt of the negro race sub
serve at once his lust of power and his thirst
of revenge upon his political opponents.
While the State of South Carolina was draft
ing her ordinance of secession and the
heavens were growing black with the gather
ing thunderstorm of war, this man Brownlow
openly advocated an "alliance of the South
with Louis Napoleon to whip the Northwestern
States into the Southern Confederacy, and
then to turn upon New England and extin-
guish the last foothold of abolition upon the
Continent of America" He raved then for
the blood of Northern men, and imprecated
upon them "the bitter agonies of death till
they should regret that they ever felt any
concern for the African race" In the course
of events it became more profitable for him to
be victorious with the Northwestern States"
than to be whipped" with the Southern
Confederacy;" but his rooted conviction re-
naming unchanged, that ''God intended the
Africans to serve their superiors as bond
men and bondwomen," he now proposes to
use the negroes of Tennessee, whose emanci-
patton ne is pOWerleSS W dDTOBdJe, dS II6 LOOlS
by which he may maintain his own new poll
tical position of Superiority" Happily, both
for Tennessee and for the country, there are
not wanting signs to make us hope that the
whites of that State have too much spirit and
the negroes too much intelligence to permit
the success of this nefarious scheme with
out a combined and gallant struggle In
the month of August next an election tor Gov
ernor will be held in that STATE, since we take
it that the Federal Government will scarcely
suffer Gov. Brownlow to close the polls by sheer
military force. BY constitutional and con-
servative convention of the people of Tennessee,
without distinction Of color, which assembled
at Nashville on the 18th of April last,
Emerson Etheridge was nominated for the
Office of Governor. Colored men of good repute
came forward at that Convention side by side
with disfranchised white citizens of character
and influence, and united with them in de-
manding oblivion of the past, peace in the
present, and Justice for the future. One
cOlOred man in especial, Joseph Williams, who
had served as a soldier in the Union army,
made a speech full of good sense and good
feeling, in which he declared that he had
never received from the Shareholders before
the war such treatment as he had met with
from Brownlow and his radicals, because he
refused to accept their programme of persecu-
tiOn for the defeated Rebel whites, combined
| with degradation of the blacks.
The words which the Tribune has played
! with as counters, the conservative Union men
! of Tennessee have taken for coin. They
! boldly raise the standard of universal am
nesty and impartial suffrage" Nothing can
be clearer or less ambiguous than their atti-
tude, They go forward TO the contest for the