The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-05-22

that the war had no higher or nobler object
than to give them a chance to get at the niger
vote. All the blood shed, all the money spent,
merely moved away the obstacles that We're
between them and such purpose Their eager
ness now Is not TO secure in the South any
national object that might have been worthy
such q war: not to draw towards us by wise
laws the States that slavery had so nearly
torn away; not to establish property and per-
sonal rights ON a better basis; not to assure to
the country that permanent peace and tran
auillity for which such sacrifices were made
No: their whole policy--all that the war has
led them to--is simply and purely an
eager, indecent, devil-take-the- -hindmost race
and scramble for the votes of all the niggers
between the Potomac and the Rio Grande.
Was it for this that the American people gave
million lives and thousands of millions in
money
We must understand the recent events at
Richmond in the light of this Republican
view of the war. Republican bondsmen,
Judges, Jurors, and lawyers all see it the same
way, and open their mouths in an accord as
happy and harmonious as though they were
only the four-and-twenty blackbirds of the
political pie. And the burden of the song
must startle the country. We care, they say,
for no result of the war that is worthy of
respect. There was no such principle in it as
should make opposition a crime. 1t was only
our party game, and we have won. We have
removed the obstacles to our party supre-
macy: we have access to the niggers-to a
vast ignorant mass of voters whom we can
shape and use as we will, and by whose votes
we can control, not the South merely, but the
North also. There are no precedents to be
made there was absolutely nothing in it but the
nigger and this prisoner, who might be i'm
poTtant if there were any such National ques-
ton as good government and treason at
stake, is not even worth his board in case
mate. Such is the tune. How does the
country like it How will the people bear to
be thus told, by the indifference with which
the representative of the whole tremendous
revolt is set at large, that there is no such
thing as treason How will they bear to learn,
by seeing everything forgotten in earnestness
TO secure the niger vote, that the great domi-
nant party sees no nobler result in the war
than the chance to use the niggers That it
can shut its eyes to the first necessities OF
restoration, to the securing of peace and good
order, and harmonizing the country; nay, that
it will actually lay down programme to i'm
peril again all the proper objects of the war,
rather than risk the loss of the votes it has
evidently always regarded as the grand spoil
of the struggle.
Two thoughts will grow into the national
mind as the people reflect on these events-the
reputation of the vast debt incurred for q
party purpose, and the repudiation of the
party that incurred it. If the conduct o.
radical leaders forces the conviction that the
war is to have no other result than might be
summarized in a.party programme, the people
will grow restive under the burden it has
placed upon them. The debt was incurred
by the people through devotion to the national
cause; if the money was spent for any less
important cause than that of saving the
nation, the people will not pay. That, in plain
English, will be one result of the last radica
assumption that the country was never il
| danger--that there was no traitor, no treason
no crime merely some inevitable political op
position, quite innocent in its nature, and fol
which it would be cruel to punish any one
| Another result must be the utter destruction
of popular confidence in all those men who
have thus shown their readiness to play fas
and loose OH questions that the people justly
regard as vitally important-to trife with the
life of the nation. There must and will be {
clean sweep of these political hucksters. MeI
who have no other ideas of the great struggle
of modern times than it was the last politica
shuttle are unworthy the respect of an intelli
gent people, and must give place to leaders
with more of the real character of the people
in them, and who, by their sympathy with tn,
people, can properly lead the country to tn,
tulflment of the nobler parts of its destiny.