The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-10-18
Can KsconstruotlOn Be Reversed /,


III ON the ". y Tribune.
Some of our Democratic friends are working
themselves into the belief that the reconstruc-
ton policy adopted by Congress can be re-
versed, and the laws passed last winter for the
organization of State governments on the basis
of impartial suffrage can be repealed, by De-
mocratic victories this fall. Suppose the
victories won, what would be the result No
members of either House of Congress can be
elected until 1868. 1t would be in vain to
ask the present Senate and House to repeal
the laws which by twe-third vote they have
adopted, and return to the Presidents policy
of reconstructing the South on the basis of the
white vote only, nine-tenths of which are
Rebel and pro-slavery. For nearly two years
after President johnson came into power, the
policy of reconstruction on the white vote only
was fully tested. Its fruits were the black
codes of South Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia,
and other States, for the reinstatement of the
freedmen, debarring them from owning lands,
hiring houses, dispOsing freely of their SER
vices, and providing them the knout and the
lash as a substitute for wages, and the Fugi-
tive Slave law, with its bloodhounds as
remedy for discomfort.
Laws were passed by the Legislatures and
municipal governments elected by the white
vote only, disarmlng the colOred soldiers who
had fought for the Union, taxing severely all
occupations followed by cOlored men, limiting
their right to testify as witnesses in courts and
to meet in public assemblies. Not single law
providing for the education of freedmen was
passed. Acts aboliBhing slavery and repeal
ing the ordinance of secession were wrung
from them only by moral coercion and under
protest. But further than this none of them
could be driven Nowhere did they give equal,
or any civil rights to the blacks. A black man
| must hire out for the whole year during the
most dsadvantageous season, viz, the first
weeks in January, thus excluding him from
| all employments but agricultural and menial
labor for in no others would employers hire
for so long terms; he was forbidden either to
| buy or hire house or land, thus breaking up
that first and highest element of freedom, the
family, and compelling all its members to live
as menials in white families or field hands on
white mems plantations. Ifpermitted to testify
in court at all, it was before Judge whom he
had no vote in electing, and jury from which
| all of his race were excluded. Justice, to him
was an impossibility. A different code Of
| rights, of punishments, of taxes, was made out
for him from that which governed his white
| master. If these barbarous and oppressive
laws needed enforcement, a Rebel sheriff was
authorized to call upon Rebel governor, who
summoned into the field the same Rebel
armies that surrendered at AppOmattoX, com
manded by the same officers, and whose or
| ganization was continued under the name o
State miltias The race thus sought to be
oppressed were two.thirds of the people in
South Carolina, three-ffths in Mississippi and
Louisiana, and one third in the entire South,
The blacks saw that their coveted liberty, pro
Claimed by Lincoln, was vanishing under
| JVhnsOhs system OF reconstruction. They
orled out in agony that their condition was
tenioid worse than when in slavery. Then
they had each but one master, and his heart
might soften. Now" said they, Eve serve
a mob, and it is merciless." Negro killing
became the amusement Of the chivalry. If q
negro looked impudently, he was shot.