The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-04-29


and sending missionaries to propagate the
faiih INTO the regions where they are needed
most.
We are glad to see that the Southern States
are selected as the special field of their labors.
inns indicates, IN the first place, belief on
their part tnat those States will be promptly
in the next Presidential election. Eears bove
been felt that Congress might repudiate the
implied pledges of the Reconstruction bill and
refuse to admit the Southern States in snite
of their acceptance of its terms. fangnaoe
used by prominent members gave color Of re9-
son to those fears. The action of the Con
gressional Committee tends to dispel tbem
Unless they expected the Southern States TO
participate in the Presidential election. and to
resume their seats in Congress. thew wonId
not thus concentrate their party efforts on
their conversion.
This result alone will be of immense imnort-
anGe. Since the war closed-indeed from tho
moment it broke out--we have regarded tbe
restoration of the Union as the paramount
the supreme necessity of the country. Onr
strength, abroad and at home, our self-respeot.
the preservation of our liberties. the main,
tenance OF our Constitution, the perpetuation
of those great maxims and doctrines of civil
liberty which give worth and value to orr
national existence, depend upon the restored
integrity of our National Union. When tbat
shall have been accomplished we shall resume
the regular, natural course of our national
development and growth.
The extension of Republican principles and
measures of government to the South Is a leoi.
innate object OF party effort, and essential
to the public welfare. If Republican nrinci-
pies had taken root in the South when thew
did in the North, we should have had no re-
bellion. Sectional parties must always be the
curse of the nation. The best of all guaran-
tees against a renewal of sectional strife is the
humiliation of sectionalism in party action.
The public safety demands that, while there
is powerful Republican party in the North
there should be one in the South also,
Whether 1t shall be dominant there or not, is
a secondary consideration; but the ideas.
feelings, prejudices, organization of any party
which may control one section of the country
must have root, friends, and strength in the
other also. The party which has possession
OF the Government must have allies and adhe-
rents in every part of the Union, else dis
union becomes natural and inevitable.
The Congressional Committee is opening a
political campaign for the purpose of making
the Southern States Republican-or at least
OF organizing and building up the Republican
party in the Southern States. Whether thew
succeed or not and whether their success is
desirable or not, depend ON the scope of their
purpose and the means they adopt to carry it
out. 1t looks little as if their determine
ton was to convert the contest into struggle
OF races--to array the blacks and whites
against each other-to convince the blacks
that the whites are their foes, and that they
must not act with them politically. The
character and antecedents of the missionaries
they have selected-the tone of the speeches
they have thus far made and the general
temper in which the subject is discussed by
their leading organs, suggest suspicious of
this kind. We can tell better when the can
Yass is more advanced. If the Committee
prompt or countenance, through their agents,
the preaching of cOntiScation as a Republican
principle in the Southern States, their final
purpose will be no longer open to doubt. It
will then be clear enough that not only hos
tility, but 0ar of races, falls within the scope
of their endeavors.
We confess our expectations of Republican
success in this canvass are not high. The
time has gone by when the Republican
party can hope for aid and support in the
South. wise and generous policy, charac-
terized by confidence rather than hatred, and
relying on interest rather than force, adopted
two years ago, would have made one-haLf the
Southern States as thoroughly and reliably
Republican as New York or Indiana. The
adoption OF such policy is no longer possible,
nor II 1t were would it have the same effect.
The Republicans now rely for this result on
separating the blacks from the whites and car
rylng the elections by the negro vote. We do
not see any great chance of their succeed
ing Missionaries from outside, tracts
speeches, exhortations, and kindred iniu-
ences, however Jealous and strong, will always
be weak and impotedt as against the
daily contact the mutual dependence, and the
constant pressure of business and of social
activity. This always has been the case, and
it always will be. 1t is so in the North, in
spite OF the intelligence and independence
which characterize our people. The laborers
in the mines of Pennsylvania vote in the
main with their employers. The mass of the
workers in Lowell and in Lawrence, and
everywhere else, vote with those who give
them work, not from compulsion or from
fear, but from conviction, or at least from
preference. They naturally act with those
on whose capital they live. Their first and
strongest feeling is that their interests are the
same-that they must stand or fall, prosper
or pine together. And no amount Of politi-
cal prOpagandism db ertra succeeds in putting
them apart. .
There is every reason to supposethat the same
thing will prove true in the Southern States.
The blacks and whites in the main will 90
together. There may be temporary and local
separations, but as general thing, and in the
long rum the whites will plan the campaign,
mark out the programme, nominate the can
didates, and the blacks will help elect them.
And probably one of the most important of
the results achieved by Congress-, in the en-
franohisement of the negroes will be the
increase of political power which it thus con-
ferred ON the Southern States.
What is Conservatism
From The Tribune.
In nothing is the benefcence of the Military
n IL,