Edgefield advertiser. [volume] (Edgefield, S.C.) 1836-current, 1867-08-07
A Batch of Blacks in Congress-, and
) what Then2

The New York Herald is ever prepared tc
veer round with The current, and lis many
changes of course during the last few months
prove its anxiety not to miss the occasion fol
increasing its reputation for enterprise, sagaci
ty and inconsistency. More than once it has
limited that the N1rth would be fretful and
snappish if the doctrine of negro equality
were pushed too far and iu an editorial pub.
lished on Friday last, it makes the issue fair.
ly and then squarely meets it.
The Herald aludes to Mr.. SUMMERS admo
milton that within twelve months there would
be in tie United States Senate sprinkling oi
colorcd Southern Senators, and says it will
not be surprised if the outside States send
ten or twenty such to the halls of Congress-
In these estimates that there will be in the
South five hundred thousand black voters
against six hundred and City thousand white
voters All that,-allowing for the disfran-
chiscd classes, the Indifference or disgust Of
those whites who are not disfranchised, and
the fractions of the whites which will SO WITH
tie blacks,-from the Potomac to the Rio
Grande, the Republicans, viii hold the game
in their own hands. The Erald continues
as follows:
So, from the facts and figures before US,
the actual situation of things warrants the
conclusion that the Republican patty will car
ry nearly all, If not all these ten outside
revolutionized Southern States, in their work
of reconstruction. Nor is it likely that the
blacks. constituting in all these States the
bulk and strength of the party. will consent
to do all the work without any of its rewards.
They have only to demand share of the
honors and offices to get them. Hence, We
may confidently expect, and during the pres
ent Congress, that sprinkling of members
of African descent in both Houses suggested
by Senator Sumner.
We are called, then, to inquire what will
be the moral effect in the political world of
this startling innovation upon the old order
of things? We may be sure that negro
equality, proclaiming itself through negro
voices from both Houses of Congress, will
make profound impression upon the public
mind throughout the North. IVe apprehend
that the result piHb be a general reaction against
the Republican party In the Northern States !;
for we know that there is a stronger wall of
white prejudice against the negro in the North
than exists in the South. This prejudice
elected Buchanan in 1856, and would have
elected Douglas or Breckenridge in 1860, had
the Charleston Convention consented to unite
upon either. We may expect, then, when
the blacks assume the political balance of
power of ten reconstructed Southern States,
and send up their black representatives to
Congress, that there will be revolutionary
reaction against them among the whites of
the North which will upset the Republican
party. This may be the real object of those
leading Southern white politicians who are
urging their people to the experiment OF al
lowing the Radicals and the blacks all the
rope they may desire in this Business of
Southern reconstruction. Let US push this
thing Of negro eone!::::y, say these Southern
leaders, into Congress, and then the laboring
white masses of the North against this South.
ern negro political balance Of power will take
the alarm, and Northern reaction OF the
whites against the blacks will be the inevita-
BILE result and thus the Republican negro
party will be destroyed by its own weapons.
This vii, in all probability, be the solution
of the experiment of the political organiza-
ton Of the blacks against the whites in the
South-a reaction Of the whites against the
blacks and the Republican party in the
North. Meantime, however. NC suspect that
the spontaneous and powerful popular move
ments North and South in behalf Of General
Grant for the succession will carry everything
before them; but with the settlement Of this
question there will unquestionably come
decisive Northern revolution on this other
aud momentous issue of negro political and
social equality.