The Bedford gazette. [volume] (Bedford, Pa.) 1805-current, 1867-11-01
THE NEGROEZING OF VIRGINIA.

The following article, copied from the
Baltimore Stm, of Friday, last, will
give our readers some idea of the work
ing of Reconstruction in Virginia:
THE SUFFRAGE SPECTACLE IN VIR-
GINIA.-Whilst Ohio has refused, by
an immense M, s,iOrity, suffrage to the
comparatively small number of color
red men in her population, Virginia,
with her vast body of emancipated
slaves, has just been subjected to the eX-
pertinent of enforced negro suffrage in
an election for convention to form the
organic law of the commonwealth
We are much mistaken if the parade of
returns from that election, and the
figures, facts and incidents connected
with it, do not greatly accelerate the
reaction at the North which has been
manifested in the late elections in
Northern States. The spectacle which
has been exhibited in the Virginia elec-
tiOn may well cause all men of any ca
pacity of reason and forecast, even in
the radical ranks, to pause and reflect
what is to be the end of such things.
What we have just seen in Virginia is
solid organization of blacks, as COM
pletely under the control of their lead
ers as an army under its general in
time of war, not only marching to the
polls to vote down conservative intel
ligence, but to vote down all moderate
men, including those well-knOwn
as the prominent Union men of the
State, and literally to hunt down, to
pelt with stones and threaten to hang
those of their own color who attempted
to vote the conservative ticket, and fu-
riously to assault the police when they
endeavOred to protect conservative men
of their own color from their violence.
One illustration, out of many, of the
manner in which the leaders of the
blacks i'm Virginia have compelled
their followers to draw the line between
white and black, and make allegiance
to one Hunnicutt, an aggrarian white
radical, instead of Union principles, the
standard Capitalization in the late elec-
tiOn of delegates to the convention, is
the defeat of Franklin Stearns, Esq,
in the county of Henrico. Mr.. Stearns
is Northern man by birth, an Origi-
nal Union man of the strongest kind,
gentleman of high character, great en-
ergy, and fine business talents, and has
large interests identified with the well
fare of Richmond and Virginia. This
gentleman recognized as one of the
most influential republicans of Vir-
ginia, has been beaten by the president
of local negro league, who is under
stood not to have received a white vote
in the county. Mr.. Stearns has been
altogether disinclined to go to the con-
ventiOn, and only consented in order
to save the county from being repre-
sented by man thoroughly incOmpe-
tent. Another case is that of a we'll
known leading republican, Lewis Nc
Kenzie, Esq, of Alexandria, gentle
manoi talents and political experience,
formerly justly acknowledged by the
colOred men as their "beSt FRIEND"
who received only ninety-nine votes
whilst the selected chief of the eXtrem-
lists received one thousand four hun
dred and eighty-seven.
The frauds in registration; the injus-
tice of the apportiOnment, which, with
large white majority in the State, so
arranged the districts as to insure a
majority to the blacks in the cOnven-
ton the contemptuous arraying of the
blacks against old Union men; the
infuriated and D!OOdthirsty assaults up
on those of their own color who de-
clined to vote their ticket, and whose
lives were only saved by the interposi-
tion of the military and the epOlice, furn
ish ample food for reflection of all in
the North who read the returns of the
Virginia election, and will intensity the
reactiOnary tide which has already set
in so strongly from Pennsylvania, and
other Northern States, and has COM
PEELED radical leaders like Chief Justice
Chase and the Governor elect of Ohio,
feeling the ground giving away under
them, to abandon an untenable and i'm
practicable position and seek safety in
more conservative ideas.
The reaction which has begun in the
North, and which the scenes just wit
messed in Virginia will greatly
strengthen, arises from no animOsity
to the negro, and from no desire to in
terfere with that improvement of his
condition and character which under
a healthfnl law of progression, must
take place, and which all men of just
and benevolentdi dispositions, both North
and South, desire to promote. But all
sensible and right-feeling people can
only see in the foolish and unnatural
process which is producing such fruits
of license and brutality as have been
borne in the Virginia election, great in
Jury and ultimate ruin, not only to the
whites, but to the blacks of the South.
The more rejecting of the blacks
themselves in Virginia appreciate the