Nashville union and dispatch. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1866-1868, 1867-10-17
WENDELL PHILLIPS ON THE
REACTION.
A Wall over the Fate OF Negro Equal

ity.
1t seems probable that the elections in
Pennsylvania and Ohio yesterday Tues
day. were substantial triumphs for the ne
gro hating Democracy. We are not sur
prised at this result, though the loss, es-
pecially of the amendment in Ohio, we
greatly deplore. 1t puts in still greater
jeopardy our own, in this State, whenever
it shall be submitted for a vote; it endan-
gers a similar amendment now pending in
Kansas, and more than all it will affect
very unfavorably the still unsettled pro-
bleln Of the political relations of the me-
gro in the final reconstruction at the South.
With the large registration of whites,
though the actual majority vote cast may
call for a convention, it is very likely, in
several States, to be q minority of all those
registered, and therefore Intellectual. In
this way Congressional reconstruction is to
be again checkmated. What greater en-
enlargement do negro-hating Southerners
need than the adverse vote of Ohio, with
such a President in the White House, to
do all they possibly can to resist the estab-
lishment Of government in the South which
shall place the blacks upon an equality
with the whites
We do not doubt the ultimate complete
triumph of our cause. But we see in the
timid and shiftless manuvering of Republic
can managers, criminal laundering which,
if it involved only themselves in disap-
pointment, we shouldnot particularly regret.
But in the two political divisions created
by the circumstances of the revolution
through which we are passing, it is the
misfortune of the situation that their Crimi-
nal folly inflicts needless and most cruel
suffering, even unto death, or living tor
lures worse than death, upon thousands of
victims, white and black, throughout the
South, and greatly embarrasses the pro-
gress of our cause in the North The Re-
publcans of Massachusetts, in their late
Worcester convention, paved the way for
the Ohio defeat by their non-committal
attitude in regard 10 negro suffrage as a
vitality important question. Such course
was but part of the Wilson-Fessenden
Republican policy. The Republicans of
this State resolved definitely and unquali-
fedly in favor of negro suffrage, but the
action of the representatives of the party
at the Albany convention, in postponing
the subject beyond the November election,
neutralizes the moral effect of the Syracuse
resolution. The Republicans of Pennsyl-
vania meanly lodged the issue, the signif-
canoe of which, as connected with national
politics, they fully understood. Their ac,
ton invited the defeat which they richly
deserve. The Republicans of Ohio, in a
greater degree than its spurious Democra,
CIV. are responsible for the ignominous de-
feat of the national issue in their canvass
lust closed. In a most disreputable manner
thew refused to submit the question at ALL
aud then. in view of what Congress, under
military rule, dictated for the South, they
felt constrained to reconsider their previous
action. and to change front in the face of
the enemy. With this manifest timidity
and insincerity they were in no condition
to win victory.
In all this an absolute necessity is made
snnarent for continued hard work on the
part of all Abolitionists and sincere Radi-
calls everywhere. 1t is demonstrated that
our cause cannot be safely entrusted to po~
litical adventures, however loud their
professions of fidelity to the doctrine of
negro EQUALITY. Radical, persistent agita-
ton must be continued. Under the opera
tons of the war power we have made rapid
strides That power is not, and ought not
to be perpetual in a free government. ii,
as the beat Of battle subsidies, it is found
that the average opinion Of the country is
below the point to which, in the direction
Of freedom for the negro, the war carried
MS we must inevitably sink to the level of
that opinion. Churches and the clergy are,
as formerly, for the most part but make
weights. or a positive drag, wherethey should
be foremost in leading the nation in the
light of inmutable, fundamental Christian
principles through its present difficult and
dangerous pass. The great battle for per-
manent freedom and equal political rights
for the negro is to be fought in the year be-
fore us. The elections of yesterday and
those of next months will be as pre-
liminary engagement What might have
been" are among the saddest words. Had
Congress met its responsibilities promptly
and in straightforward manner by long
ago removing johnson and guaranteeing
negro suffrage without equivocstion in the
legislation upon reconstruction, the present
untoward defeat and others foreshadowed
might have been avoided Will ID be adj
monished at the eleventh hour?" 1t is
one Of the most threatening dangers of the
Republican defeat of yesterday that, in the
Presidential campaign which will open