Delaware tribune. [volume] (Wilmington, Del.) 1867-1877, 1867-01-31

AAse campaign ~ ASAAheSoecs
An election for members of Congress is
about to be held In Tennessee. The Gov
ernor will probably, issue his proclamation
for the election some time next month, and
the election will be held in the Spring, prob
ably in May. The bill now before the Leg
islature of the State entranchising colored
citizens will first be enacted into law, so
that the election will be placed upon new
grounds and embody new issues. 1t is in
tended, moreover, that these new issues
shall be discussed in manner and by
champions equally new to that State Ten
nessee will become, for the time, the great
arena of debate for the whole Union, being
the first of the reconstructed States 10 enact
and discuss an impartial suffrage system
1t is probable that the campaign will be one
of the most exciting and magnificently con-
tested that has ever occurred in any South
ern State, if not in any one State in the
Union. The Memphis Post says of it:
ga new feature in Southern politics is to
oe inaugurated with this campaign-the in
PRODUCTION Of Radical speakers from theNorth
upon the stump. Northern ideas and North
ern eloquence will fall upon ears that have
never heard them before. The great princi-
pies of truth and justice, enunciated by such
terse speakers as Wade and Sherman
such orators as Colfax and Logan, such rea-
soners as Kelley and Bingham, such ex-
Founders as Wilson and Boutwell,, and, last
ly, such popular takers as Fred. Douglass
and John nj. Langston, cannot fail in stirring
the popular heart of Tennessee to its depth.
Our Conservative opponents will have to be
up and doing to stem this now invasion from
the North-not of bayonets and muskets, but
OF living Ideas and practical truths. We ven
ture to say they will find the one as invinci-
BILE as the other
1t is not likely that the great Radical
champions of equal rights will be allowed to
contest the State unopposed. The opposi-
ton must also make its most vigorous battle
in this campaign. The success of impartial
suffrage in Tennessee will be the first tri-
umph of the universal suffrage movement in
the South-an entering wedge sure to be
driven home IN future contests in other
Southern States, to the final disruption of
the 'white mans government party--the
first flow OF the rising tide of equal rights
through the crevices in the elaborate and long
maintained dykes of caste prejudice, which,
If not checked at the outset, is certain to
wear away the dyke altogether, and mum
date the whole land with the flood of free
dom. Therefore there will be gathering
from both sides OF the giants of debate,
whose arguments will not be confined by the
borders Of the State in which they speak, but
will be addressed TO the people Of the whole
South, and VIII have the entire nation for an
audience. To the list of Radical speakers
given by the Memphis Post. many other
widely honored names will he added ly
the time the contest fairly begins and
ii is likely that the Radical champions will
be met by the heel talent of both the North
| and The South within the command of the
opposition.
From such discussion, carried on in the
heart Of the South, il is not presumption to
predict a great Ind lasting benefit. New
and grand principles will be not only present.
ed to the Southern people, but they will be
discussed and illustrated, and urged in a man
ner to arouse the people and command their
attention. There win be such searching
out, and roofing up, and turning over OF old
ideas and prejudices rs has never been
dreamed Of in the South, accompanied by
an equally searching and general outpouring
of (for that region new truths, new princ-
pies and new ideas as must peae,ratc every
hamlet and home in the State. and overflow
into all the surrounding State, and awaken
thought, investigation. and, perhaps, con
vintion, tnrouehou, the wide Southern re-
gioA hitherto MS carefully walled in against
the Eruption Of Northern ideas as China has
been walled against the Tartars.