The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-11-16

position held by the Republican party, and by
the great body of the people to-day. The
action of Congress has placed them in false
position upon this subject and has apparently
committed them to a principle which they do
not hold.
If the question were free from "side
issues" it would be easily and promptly
settled If it were simply this:-"Are the
negroes of the South, as body, qualified to
take part in the reorganization of the South
ern State Governments is it wise or safe to
leave them to decide what principles shall be
embodied in the State Constitutions, what
shall be the form and powers of the State
Governments, and what shall be the securities
for life and property under them 3''-there
are not ten men out of a thousand in the Re-
publican party who would not say no. No
body believes they are. How should they be ?
The great mass of them have been kept in
the most stolid ignorance all their lives; they
can neither read nor write; they have heard
nothing of politics and know nothing OF the
simplest facts OF our history or our Govern
ment; they have neither the capacity to form
opinions nor the material to form them from
and as a matter of necessity, as we'll as Of
fact, they will be and are simply tools in the
hands of party leaders and wirepullers on
the one side or the other. Circumstances
lust now throw them into the hands of the
Republicans. The weight of their votes can
and will be thrown into the Republican scale.
And it is this fact which leads the Republicans
to accept for them the the principle of univer-
sal suffrage, and which, we may add, leads the
Democrats to oppose it.
We do not think it would be wise to attempt
to change the Reconstruction act in this par
ticular now. In the first place it cannot be
done; and in politics nothing is wise which
is impossible. Moreover, it would arrest the
whole progress of reconstruction, and involve
fresh conflicts, complications, and delays in a
matter where delay is of itself one of the
worst things that can happen. But the Recon-
struction act reserves to Congress the whole
business of revising the Constitutions that may
be sent up from the States for its approval. If
they contain provisions which Congress does
not approve it can strike them out and send
them back for revision and amendment. This
seems to us a power which Congress should
exercise freely and boldly; and it may so ex-
ercise it regard to suffrage as to make the
Southern constitutions conform to what is the
real sentiment and purpose OF the Republican
party upon this subject. 1t can substitute
| impartial suffrage for universal suffrage. 1t
| can forbid the State governments from making
bolor alone a ground for disfranchsement,
without compelling them to admit ignorance,
stolidity, and incapacity to the ballot-box. II
can permit them to prescribe snch qualifca-
| tiOns for the suffrage as they may deem expe.
dent, insisting only that whatever qualifca-
tions may be prescribed shall apply to al
| inhabitants of the State alike, without regard
| to race or color.
By some such action as this it seems to us
| the rights of the negroes at the South may bt
| protected, without putting in peril any inter
est or principle which the Republican party
has at heart.