The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-07-05

ditions on Whloh the btates will be finally
readmited, or else the restoration of the
Union Is impossible. But the oonditions ON
which the Republican party mean TO insist
are such as Congress dare not avovv, for n
would be an affrOnt to public deoenov for
Congress to declare by law that the title of the
State to readmission depends upon their voting
with the Republican party. The first difficulty
OF Congress is, therefore, to find ostensibie
conditions which will coincide with and serve
as cover for the real one. If Congress
dared to say frankly that the States shall not
be restored until a majority of their citizens
vote the Republican ticket, the task of the
session would be considerably simplifed.
But the necessity of reaching their object
through crooked paths renders il impossible
for them to give a definite and irrevocable
pledge; for the conditions to which the pledge
would be attached being necessarily different
from the conditions meant to be enforced they
fear that a compliance with the open demand
would not secure the unavOwed object. In
trinsic justice and growing public impatience
require that the Southern people shall be told
what they must do to be restored, that Con-
gress shall at last offer terms by which it will
stand. But Congress as a body of partisans
can neither safely do this nor forbear to do It.
Their embarrassment consists in the difficulty
of fixing upon ostensible terms which shall
covertly include the real ones.
1t being the intention of Congress to con-
Iluu6 the 60CluSlOu OI DJaLSS u0Jll Ln6y
give Republican maiorities, Congress will find
It impossible, secondly, to devise a tolerable
scheme of government for the preservation of
order during the long period of dsmember-
ment. The experiment initiated by the Re-
construction acts contemplates three different
sources of authority, namely, the Congress of
the United States the existing State Govern
ments, and the Military Commanders. It is
utterly impossible to administer the affairs of
those States without the aid of their State
Governments, and it is incumbent on Con-
gress to define with precision the extent of
their authority, and draw the line which sepa-
rates it from that of the Military Com
manders Are the Commanding Generals to
be controlled by law, or only by their own
irresponsible wills? The latter would be mon
strOus. 1t would not only introduce as many
jarring systems as there are different COM
mands, and substitute personal caprice for
law, but it would be virtual abdication by
Congress of the authority it claims to exercise
over this subject. The Reconstruction law de-
clares that the existing State governments are
4 provisional, and subject to revision or dispace-
ment by the United States. But capricious
alterations by the Generals can hardl, be what
Congress intended since it cannot be supposed
that Congress intended to introduce as many
different systems as it established different
commands. If the commanders can do what they
please with the State governments, they may
abolish them altogether, although Congress CON
templated their continued existence as the chief
part of the machinery of local administration.
If the Generals can iemOve any State officer
they please at their mere discretion then they
may remove all State officers and thereby
annihilate, in their respective commands all
authority but their own. 1t is incumbent on
Congress to draw line of demarcation be-
tween the military authority and the provi-
sional State authority. The States must not
ha nm q Of H,,t To-
Congress, in passing the Reconstruction act
seemed to suppose that it had relieved itself
from the duty of precise and specific legisla-
tion in respect to these conflicting iurisdic-
tions, by turning the subject over to the mill
tary commanders But it is found on trial
that this evasion of the difficulty is imprac-
ticable, and Congress assemblies to attempt
the specific legislation it neglected and
shirked. When it enters upon the task, it
will find that it has undertaken to solve an
insoluble problem. By the very fact of as
sembling Congress repudiates Mr.. Stanbery's
opinion that the provisional State Govern
ments are to stand in all their force, and
clothed with all their functions, until super
seded by the new ones contemplated by the
Reconstruction law. Positive authority for
interference with them is to be conferred on
the commanding generals. But any grant of
authority which is limited and specific, which
is so restrained by rule as to make
| lLS eXerLlOn UNIFORM IN all the nV0
departments, will leave the States in the
possession of a vast body of powers re-
served from military intermeddling. On
! the other hand, unlimited and un-
restricted grant of authority conveyed in gene
raj terms, leaving its extent to the mere dis
cretion of the several commanders will be a
virtual enaction of FIVE different and inconsis-
tent systems calling anew for the harmonizing
interference of the Executive, which in turn
| will create a necessity similar to the present
| for another revision of the law by Congress.
The status of the existing State Governments
during their provisional period is a subject on
which Congress cannot attempt precise legisla-
ton without involving itself in labyrinth of
insurmountable difficulties. But if it fails to
legislate on this subject, it might as well not
! assemble.
Another difficulty, and grave one results
from the possibility of the States being reOr-
ganized and their politics controlled by the
negro element. The only chance of giving
these States to the Republicans is through the
negro vote, increasing it by whites enough to
make it majority. But this will lead inevi-
tably to negro othce-holding, result which the
Republicans dread and deprecate. The
negroes will be a majority of the Republican
party in every Southern State and it will
be in their power to dictate all the nomi-
nations to Office. That they will practise
any such self-abnegaton as to give all the
offices, with their emoluments and hOnOrs to
white leaders, is contrary to all probability.
But not even the radicals would care to
vouch for the preservation of order in the
South under the rule of black governors and