New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1867-11-20
THE SOUTHERN CONVENTIONS.


The delegates from the genuine Democracy
of the South, who are already engaged III or
will soon attempt the task of framing for their
respective States constitutions based on Man
hood and loyalty, undertake that responsibility
under great disadvantages. Most OF them are
door and hitherto obscure men, who utterly
Iacl, familiarity with legislative proceedings
and constitutional history; some are of the
despised, detested Black race, and have scarcely
learned to read, having been tield-hands, to
instruct whom was felony by statute not three
years ago. They are watched with uncOncealed
contempt and maignity by very large major
ity of the old Planting Aristocracy and its
legal, mercantile and clerical satellites, who
expect to overthrow, on the heel of the next
Presidential election, the governments now to
be erected, and replace them by substitutes OF
THEN own construction, based on the asSump-
ton that Blacks have no rights that Whites
are bound to respect. On the side OF the Al1s-
tocracy is nearly the entire Press-able, UNI
scrupulous and envenomed-and nearly all who
send kilograms to Northern journals. OF course,
the sO-called negro governments must OK
pect to have all they do msrepresented to their
prejudice, and very much evil charged to them
and believed in which they never thought OF.
Judging by what has been, they may expect
to find themselves charged with all manner OF
evil deeds and purposes even in the columns
of journals which would treat them fairly IL
they could.
We entreat the Southern Conventions. there
fore. to eschew carefully even the appearance of
evil and especially whatever might seem to
ala
Rights for All Citizens your cornerstone, and
bury in oblivion whatever is hateful III the
past, while taking the amplest security against
oppression in the future. Disappoint those
who predict new Civil War as the result Of
Black Enfranchiscment and pile proof upon
proof that Universal. Justice is enduring Peace.
Show the world that You comprehend the ex-
igency, and can read the lesson involved in
the fate of the late aristOcracy who, in seek
ing to extend and strengthen Slavery, de
strOyed it. The assured pTedominance OF Re-
publican principles. alike at the South and mt
the North, imperatiyely requires that the
Freedmen should prove safer, discreeter, more
competent repositories of power than their
late masters did.
We believe the Conventions will be fully jas
titled in exacting of every voter promise or
oath that he viii not henceforth seek TO dis
franchise the Blacks. Liberty and Equal
Rights for All being the cornerstone of the
new political edifce erected on the downfall of
Secession and Slavery. it may be well to quiet
apprehension, preclude danger, and take n
bond of fate" by such requirement. And
this, we are confident, will suffice. No contsca-
ton, no spOliatiOn, no vengeance! let the
changes be so many as are requisite to secure
and maintain Equal Rights; and there stop.
Let the changes be few and perspicuous,
though reaching; let the Constitutions be
as brief and simple as may be, and as nearly
like those they supcrsede as is consistent with,
the great end of making each of them Glib
raltar of Human Liberty. Then let the work
be consummated at the earliest practicable
moment. and let every State be fully repre-
scented in Congress before the 1st of March
Our enemies assert that we wish to keep the
South out of Congress: let US show them how
utterly they are mistaken. And, as each re-
sumes her proper position, reconstructed and
regenerated, let the suspicious event be fifty
honored in every State of the Union.