The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-03-22
the NEW YORK PRESS.
EDITORIAL OPINIONS or THE LEADING JOURNALS
UPON CURRENT TOPICs-COMPILED EVERY
DAY FOR TIKI EvENING TELEGRAPH.
The workings of Reconstruotion.

The Workings of Reconstruction.
FTOH1 the Tribune
The President has appointed the comman-
ders of the five Military Districts into which
Bie South is divided they are ready to execute
Che law; the loyal men, white and black, are
prepared to take part in the work. The basis
ofreconstruction is fully laid the plan of the
Supplementary bill is certain to be enforced;
and it only remains to be seen what action
will be taken by the men who now control the
Southern States.
We assume that they will accept the law,
and so far as they are not excluded by it, will
speedily begin to reorganize their States in the
way it requires. But they will do this under
protest. Our Southern exchanges, with not
very many exceptions, denounce the law, and
even those which advise the people to accept
at abuse the power which made it. Consolation
is sought in the fact that the South was not
consulted in the making of it, 'We are not
asked to become accomplices in our own degra-
dation, as when Congress proposed that we
should ratify the Fourteenth Amendment to
the Constitution. These terms are imposed,
and we can use without disgrace laws we are
powerless to repeal" Men like Robert Ould
and r. T. Daniel, of Virginia, proclaim it is
true, that any Southern man who takes part
an reconstruction under this bill is treacherous
TO his State, and papers like the Houston IeLe-
graph consider that the bill justifes every
crime known in history or possible to human
mature; but their counsels will not be regarded.
The disloyal men who can take the oath re-
quired by the law of voters, will take it, and
for this excellent reason: The negroes and the
loyal white minority, if they refuse to act, will
form State constitutions without their aid.
Rather than see this effected the worst op-
ponents of the law will in a few weeks be or
gani7ing party under its protection. The
members of the Louisiana Legislature who, as
1ate as February II, passed a bill over the
Governors veto providing for a State election
10y white voters only, and who last week re-
terred to a committee resolutions declaring the
RecOnstructiOn law unconstitutional and only
TO be executed by the force of the bayOnet-
Shameful resolutons-will soon be working to
keep the control of their State by the means
the law provides. Other Legislatures will
avoid the mistake of Louisiana, and, as under
the law the officers of the present Provisional
Governments continue to perform their duties
until their successors shall have been elected,
they will be obliged to take some action. 1t
IS understood that Governor Orr will soon
assemble the Legislature of South Carolina to
consider the propriety of calling a convention.
In Georgia, Alabama, and Virginia, the Pro-
visional Governors will probably take similar
steps. And in every State the men who most
hate the law will accept the advice of their
shrewdest leaders, and try to obtain all possi-
ble power in the new Governments, in the
hope of controlling the negro vote hereafter.
But this, fortunately, is not the only phase
Of reconstruction. Brighter skies arch above
the South, in which new light dawns. In
North Carolina the Union whites and freed
men will on the 9th of this month, hold a
Joint Convention in Raleigh to organize
Union party and consider a new Constitution
for the State. In South Carolina there are
indications that the freedmen will obtain the
rights secured them by the law, without the
opposition of the Rebel leaders, and If we
may trust recent professions, with their aid. 1t
IS true such aid is not needed, and those who
may give it do so regretting that the negroes
are to vote, and only hoping to get their bal
lots, but that matters little. Then there are
men in the South who, like General Harley,
eX-Lieutenant-GovernOr of South Carolina, are
sincerely willing to accept negro suffrage as
an act of justice, especially if universal am
nesty should follow it. We may hope, too,
that the number is increasing Of those who
have learned to know not only the might
but the right of freedom, and who hail its
triumphs as their own. 1t is too much to
assume that the negroes are the only people
in the South who have become more en-
Iightened, and LIBERAL and Just since the
war. Many of the whites have also made
cheering progress, and it is not to be denied
merely because so little of it is revealed. 1t
must be remembered that such improvement
is so unpopular that it is no small risk to
acknowledge it. We rejoice that there are
evidences that the restraint to which they
have been subjected is being removed, and
that such eX-Rebel leaders as General Hamp-
ton can at least address the negroes as polti-
cal equals without being misunderstood.
County meetings are to be held in every
Southern State to consider the new method of
reconstruction; one was held in Buckingham
county, Virginia, on the llth instant, and at
Montgomery, Alabama, a large meeting is
called for the 26th There is much reason to
hope that they will not be composed only of
negroes and a few prescribed loyal whites but
that even those who believe the law unconsti-
tutional and tyrannical will not let such
opinions prevent them from accepting its
benefits.