The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-03-08


dawn of political system peculiar to this
continent, with the United States as the chief |
regulating power, is already in effect admitted. |
How readily Spain indorses the conclusion, |
and avails herself of the opportunity of termi- !
mating its war with Chill, is proved by its
prompt acceptance of the overture embodied !
i'm Mr. Stewards circular The conference il
suggests will be important on account of what
it foreshadows, as well as because of its imme-
diate advantages.
The southern Press on the New Law OF
RecODstrucLiOn.
From he Herald.
With Beauregard's bombardment of Fort
Sumter, one of the most remarkable and radical
revolutions in the history Of the human race
was inaugurated in the Rebel Confederate
States. The full import and consequences of
this revolution have just been officially pro-
claimed in the new law of Southern recon
struction. With all the warnings that had
been given them, however, touching their
scornlul rejection, from Virginia to Texas
of the pending Constitutional amendment,
this new law, with its sweeping and decisive
exactions, seems to have fallen upon the
leading politicians of those States like an un-
expected calamity. 1t appears to have created
something of that CONSERVATION among them
which followed that terrible march of Sher-
man through South Carolina. They are dis
appointed, COnfOunded, and excited to q high
pitch of impOtent wrath; but the scales are
falling from their eyes, and they are beginning
to realize and recognize the fixed facts and
the necessities of their situation.
The Richmond journals, in near rapport with
the progress of events at Washington, have for
some days past been wholly absorbed with this
astounding ultimatum of radical Congress.
One of them compares it with the "Domesday
Boke' of William the Conqueror; but the
wrathful editor, after showing how the Eng
lish people, by submission to the law of neces-
sity, survived that invasion and the revolu-
ton of Cromwell and that which expelled
James the Second, counsels the same policy
to the South. Another of the Richmond jour
nails harps away through three columns upon
the atrocities of this ''bill of attander against
nine millions of people" but at the end ad-
vises the responsible people of Virginia to
accept the situation and proceed to action, in
order to save the State from seizure by rad-
Gals and negroes A Petersburg paper of the
Rebel type, says ''the South will accept the
slavery under SheTman's bill. A thousand
straws show how the current is setting. No
hazard now in the prediction that ere sixty
days have passed majority of the Southern
States will voluntarily have conformed to the
new order of things.'
The special otfense, however, which appears
to have most deeply wounded the leading
organs of Richmond, is the advice of Submis-
sion to the law volunteered by an oficious
Copperhead journal of New York. The South
ern response to this advice is that it was not
asked and is not wanted; that from 1861 to
1865, in all that the Southern people saw,
''there was as greedy a palm for bounty
money among the Northern Democrats as
among the Republicans, while, with few ex-
ceptiOns, the protests that came from the
Democratic leaders had the tone rather of
whine for office and power than the heroic
ring of men ready to die sooner than be made
slaves Of" Just so; and yet the South has
been the willing victim to the false promises
and delusions of the Copperhead leaders and
organs of the helpless Northern Democracy
from 1861 to 1867.
But what is the prospect among the people
of the South Their case is progressing Gas
well as could be expected" Their astonished
and infuriated leaders of the old pre- -Adamite
school are raving that the destruction of their
institutions is complete, that the Constitution
has become a mOckery that the Union is de-
strOyed forever, that they are under the ter
rOrs of an absolute despotism, and all that;
but still there is prevailing undercurrent in
favor OF submission to Congress, not only from
the law of necessity, but for reasons of sound
policy and common sense. Wall street is i'm
pressed with the fact, i'll the decline of gold
since the passage of this bill. Wall street re-
cOgniZes it as a settlement which, instead of
turning the world upside down, will turn the
South right side up. Delicate and shaky as is
the machinery of our present financial system,
sensitive as it has become to the slightest
touch from passing political events, the pas
sage Of this sweeping reconstruction bill has
not shaken it, but has strengthened it. This
Southern settlement makes the retention or
removal of President Johnson secondary
matter. We presume that he will be given a
reasonable margin in reference to the eXecu-
ton of this law and other laws, and that in
seeing them faithfully executed" he will be
no more disturbed
The people Of the ten excluded States are
naturally in a state of excitement and pertur-
baton. Two hundred years of the teachings
distinctions castes and preiudices, laws and
usages of African slavery naturally produce a
violent Southern recoil against negro suffrage
even at this late day. But stern necessity
will teach people how to move mountains
and shut out the sea; and the necessities of
| the ruling Southern white class are already
| leading them to this dreaded concession of
negro suffrage. Why should they hesitate
| when they can turn it to the greatest advan-
/ tages for both races, socially and industrially
and in behalf Of the political interests of the
| South in Congress and in the Federal Ad-
! ministration 1t seems only yesterday that
| our armies, while fighting for the Unon were
! instructed to protect Rebels in their slave
! property. We have crossed the Red Sea, the
! Wilderness, and the Jordan, and have entered
! into the Promised Land since that last trial
! under the bondage of Egypt. President john
| son as Moses was left behind on Mount Nebo,
| and "Old Thad. Stevens" as Joshua is no
! great shakes, but he must do until we can get