The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-12-17
The Nearest Duty,

FROM The ". 7. Tribune.
Conversing last week at Washington with
one of the keenest and most determined radi-
Gals in the South we inquired as to the pros
pect of carrying his State in the ensuing cleo
tion. every much depends" he replied,
con our candidate for Governor. If A be the
man, l shall fear the result; with b, the
chance will be better; but the man we ought
to run, if we could, is General X He was a
Rebel, and fought gallantly through the war;
yet, the moment it was over, he said he had
fought for slavery, because he believed in it;
but, now that it was gone, he was for Recon
struction and lasting Union on the basis of
equal rights for all. From that hour, he has
steadily, openly advocated the enfranchise-
ment of the blacks, not merely as expedient,
polite, inevitable, but as essentially
right-a logical, necess sary result of emancipa-
tion. If he were only enfranohised, so that
we could run him for Governor, our success
would be certain"
Is there one man on earth not born idiot
who can imagine a reason for not enfranchis-
ing such man-all such men What sort of
policy, or justice, or common sense, can there
be in keeping under the ban men who are not
merely with us and of us, but whose restora-
tion to political rights is essential to our own
success and ascendancyY
We do not seek to disguise the fact that we
favor far more generous and comprehensive
restoration to political rights; but that cannot
affect the wisdom of enfranchising our own
people. 1t is on this point that we would now
fix attention.
The Alabama Convention has sent up to
Congress long list of the dsfranchised in
that State who, because they are earnest,
active radicals, the majority desire to have
% 4Ia f,11n r;r1,k 1nfa
and we do not doubt the ultimate success of
this demand. But why not affirm principle
rather than establish an exception Why
should not Congress enact, in six lines, that
every Southron who has, for at least three
months past, supported reconstruction on the
basis of equal rights for all citizens, and still
supports it, shall, upon making and filing his
affidavit to the fact, be restored to all political
rights and placed on the registry of his district
as a voter What is the need of squandering
paper in printing long lists of names when the
principle involved is SO clear 2 Admit that
few unchanged Rebels might commit perjury
in matter so plain as to render exposure and
infamy, if not legal punishment, inevitable,
we insist that their power for evil would be
fatally crippled by the notoriety of their crime.
| And it is never possible to preclude absolutely
! all chance of such abuses.
! Colonel Dom Piatt used to insist, in his
Ohio stump speeches, that the Republicans
! must haste and get principle TO stand upon
before Vallandighem should die and leave
them bankrupt. In that spirit, we hold that
| the insane folly wherewith the ex-Bourbons of
| the South insist on arraying the blacks in
| solid phalanX against them cannot possibly be
expected to outlast the next two years. And
whenever the old masters shall have wit
enough to say to their ex-slaves, "We con-
cede to you all the rights that we claim for
ourselves; why should we be antagonists any
longer P'-they will carry large part, If not
most, of them away from those who now run
the Republican machine at the South. The
recent conservative negro meeting at Mobile
is ominous of what must surely come. So
long as the reaotionists who absurdly term
themselves conservatives shall see fit to
stand on the platform of ''a white mans gov
erpment," whereof blacks must be serfs, this
gravitation of the negroes towards their old
masters will amount to nothing more than the
Irish vote for Know-nothng tickets; but the
moment the old aristocracy of the South con-
cede the right of suffrage to the blacks, the
whole situation will be changed. And that
they will do, as soon as they are satisfied
that they can do no better.
Every consideration of poliey-and we are
now looking no further--demands that the re-
construction Of the Southern States be has
tened so far as is consistent with the mainte-
nance of political rights for their lately eman-
cipated people. Congress will doubtless amend
its late acts so far as to render majority OF
those voting, instead of requiring a majority
of all who are registered, to adopt their reno
waited Constitutions. That it will also enfran-
chise at least all the fre-tried radicals who
were once Rebels, is so obvious a dictate Oi
common sense that we cannot imagine a pre-
text for pOstpOning 1t even a week.