The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-12-20

don Ine entire loyal element there to the will
Of trail ors and that IL is emiuently proper tnnt
the House should respond i'm emphatic terms 10
SO e%irsQIdiuary a proposition, and resolvi1g
that the House will never consent to lake "A
Tetrograde step from its advanced position in
promoting the cause of equal rights. nor TO de
men as equal before the law; that there Is no
reason TO doubt Jhat the restoration Of the re-
bellious states is being successfully accom-
pshed on a firm and enduring basis, and that
no good reason exists why the Reconstruct N
acts should be repealt d."s
This resolution commits the Republican
party to the same position it held in Novem-
ber-usurpation of State control Of suffrage,
the ballot taken from Southern whites, and
given to the negro race by wholesale.
The prompt, decided, and unanimous treat
ment of Mr.. Benjamin's resolution sufficiently
indicates that it had been considered framed,
and passed upon in the councils of the radicals
before it was brought TO the floor of the House
of Representatives. Indeed, it has already
been followed up by Mr.. Stevens as the Chair
man of the Reconstruction Committee, who
on Tuesday asked consent, in their behalf to
report bill "relating to the reconstruction of
Southern territory" Estates no more as these
fifty times perjured members stultlfy them
selves in dsclariDg).
This new Reconstruction bill, which will
doubtless be driven through Congress with
whip and spur, not merely fortiie5 the Re-
publican party in all the positions of the negro
State reconstruction scheme: it goes further
and does worse 1t avows, as boldly and
brazenly as acts can possibly do, the partisan
purpose of the Republican party to carry the
next Presidential election by the negro-State-
vote made-sure.
The first section of Mr.. Stevens new bill
t'modifes the Reconstruction act 80 that
simple majority of votes cast for or against
the constitution may affirm or reject such con-
stitution."
The fifth section of the Reconstruction act
Of at laas st bal
of all the registered voters in each State
should vote on the question of ratification"
| Mr.. Stevens fears that the silence of the whites
may yet prevent those States from counting
in the Presidential contest. He has deter
| mined, and the leaders of the Republican
| party have determined, that the negro State
| vote is their chief reliance. In that they do
not mean to be disappointed. They are arraug-
| ing to make that result a certainty, though
| but ten negroes in any State should vote to
ratlfy the new constitutions, and but nine
negroes vote against them--all the same under
! Stevens new bill would the negro constitu-
! tiops be pronounced republican, be approved
by Congress, and the hundred and ninety
negroes endowed with the power to impose a
President upon thirty millions OF white Ameri-
can freemen
No-not with the power For upon this
plank now spiked into the platform of the
| Republican party for the Presidential cam.
paign of 1868, not General Grant himself
were it possible for him so to demean himself
so to diverge from the great career which i!
| open to him, so to blot out the memory of his
own magnanimity at Appomattox Cour
House-not even General Grant himself upor
this plank could be lifted into the White
| House.
If so. called "Southern white olgarchy, >
thought to WELD a balance of power, partially
united the North against the Democratic
party, much more surely and much NOR,
speedily will a real Southern black olgarchy
welding a balance of power and excluding
eight millions of white men in ten sovereign
states from practical selfgovernment, unit,
the North against the reckless Republican
gamesters who thus make stake of the liber
ties of people.