Nashville union and dispatch. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1866-1868, 1867-08-09

NlOen the scope OF BIS proposition as 10
provide for a geaercI enfraRchisement of
our counhymen, North and South, who.
are now subject to a rule wherein "the.
consent Of the governed is, so far as they
are concerned, ignored Why should not
Mr.. Sumner-so long and so honorably
identified with the championship of black
emancipation, and whose plea for universal
suffrage is the broadest and most sweeping
ever vet made in congress. or Parliament
honor himself vel more BY pleading the
right of sill Americans to a voice in the
government which they are all required to
support and obey.
That men who are Rebels have no right
to control the government they were seek
ing by force TO oYerthrow, Is Eelf-evident
truth. II by no means so clear that 1t is
even wise to perpetuate the disfranchise-
ment of large classes because they Uere
Rebels years ago. The Tories of the revo-
luton became, not long after its triumph-
ant close, fellow-members Of the body
polite with those kwho had discounted
them in deadly war so of Shays's insur-
sectionists in Massachusetts and the Wits
ky Rebels of Pennsylvania. May we not
reasonably hope that the whole American
people, with at most few and definite ex-
ceptions, will be enabled to take part in
the choice of our next President and Con-
gress? Is not the enfranchisement Of all
our countrymen who need it the dictate of
national safety as well as national peace?
Nashville Correspondence-New York Herald.
The prompt, quiet and orderly manner
in which the negroes attended the polls and
deposited their votes seems. to e a color
of truth to the charges which are now made
all over the State that nearly every negro
who participated in the election had been
thoroughly drilled in this duty in the
lodge rooms and conelaves of the LOYAL
Leagues. 1t is almost impossible to account
otherwise for their perfect discipline
throughout the day. There was no con-
fusion whatever in their midst. They fell
into line like soldiers marching ''by the
flank" kept their ranks closed in serried
column manifested no Impotence at the
delay, which was inseparable to the work
and step by step pressed into the polling
place. Each man had his registration
paper and Brownlow ticket folded together
No one had to look for the proper ballot.
Each seemed to have been provided with
the little paper before he made his appear
ance at the polls. If these charges betrue,
then the Loyal League, as a secret political
society, has been one Of most remark
Bile success in the attainment of its objects.
Know Nothingism, in exerting an unseen
influence upon the voter, was as nothing
TO it.
Does this not show that the Loyal League
was most thorough in its ramifcations of
the. negro race and perfect in its control of
theac.ion of the colored man? The ques-
ton naturally arises, what would have been
the complexion of the vote cast throughout
the State had the negro been left unin-
huenced. There can be no denial of the
fact that the white employer, the old white
master, at least where he had the reputa-
ton of being humane and kind, could have
diverted large share of the negro vote to
the Conservative ticket, backed as he was
by the exhortations of the colored stump
speaker Williams, had it not been for the
unswsrving fidelity of the negro to his oath
in the lodge room of the Loyal League.
How would he have voted had there been
no such restraint is an open question. Not
that he would proved treacherous en- Dlasse
to that party which had made him a freed
man, but the pro-slavery record of Brown
low would have sealed the fate of that can
didate had the negro been at liberty to
make choice, and had there been a can.
didate in the field with a purer record on
the combined scores Of Unionism and
abolition.
That some of the freedmen were not
oath-bound land hence the doubts as to the
sweeping charge that the Loyal League
III r
the colored population) is evidenced in the
following incident which also transpired in
my presence. The colored porter at the
same hotel received his registration certi~
icate on the morning of the election
through the ministering Offices of a colored
friend, the keeper OF a saloon, who charged
treat" for his Intervention, and handed
it TO the clerk to read. The latter wag-
gishly read it off somewhat in this style:
"Fhis is to certify that John Smith, of the
city of Nashville, etc., is hereby authorized
to vote for VIM. G.. Brownlow," "Whatp
suddenly interrupted the owner of the doc
ument, a very intelligent colored indivi-
dual, by the way, "What p can't vote for
whom / please,% But seeing the grin,
which had now broken into smile, on the
face of the clerk, he snatched the paper to
put an end TO being quizzed any further.
The spirit in which the DISTINGUISHED
bore their lot has wonderfully changed
within the few hours that have succeeded
the election. During the momentous day
they seemed to treat the matter as a good
joke, rallied or condoled with each other
on their deprivation, and few, very few,
got excited enough to vent any spleen,
openly, at least. The overwhelming vote
for Brownlow, and the solid contribution
by the blacks, have suddenly staggered
them TO a consciousness of the fact that
their late slaves are now indeed their poll
tical masters. Retaliation has commenced
in the discharge of negroes from en-
ployment "a very foolish expedient
at the best, and one that in its compii-
cations may lead to the most direful re-
suits. 1t is the old expedient of tanning one
leg to spite the other.
Chattanooga eorrespOndenee-NewY ork Herald.
The Conservatives expected a defeat,
and are not now disappointed. 1t is very
doubtful if they have carried a single
county in the State. They have, however,
organized party, with which they cannot
fail to be victorious at the next election.
The Northern Republicans are even now
ready to join them in moment for the en-
franchisement of the white people and the
restriction of the suffrage by qualification
of intelligence, both of which meas
ures the events of yesterday have proved
to every thinking man are essential to the
preservation, or rather restoration, of Re
publican civil liberty to the State. These
events have proved that the ignorant mass
of the negroes are most easily controlled
by the lowest class Of demagogues that
with the State almost exclusively In the
hands Of the negroes they will be used as
tools to elect to office men who will make
the State a byword for corruption, and will
impoverish the property holders by ex-
orbitant taxation, so that there will be no
necessity for confscation. The election has
disguised most ofthe Republican party with
Brownlow. have heard several prominent
Northern Republicans say to-day that when
they voted again for such a man as Brown
low, at whose instigation and with whose
approval such scenes were enacted, they
would be many years older.
The Conservative party of Tennessee
took a long leap ahead when they adopted
the Nashville platform. That they took
the people with them the following adj
mission of the Nashville Gazette, the organ
of the Bourbons, Of August j, proves eve
have acted with the politicians under pro-