The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-07-27

had sought to make the c0l0red citizen an
American, they had left him, as we found
him, an African.
Negro Onice-HoIdinR and its COnse-
quences. ..a .Hu
From The World.
''These portents are visible only to those who
manage to comfort themselves by invoking
prospect OF misery. Nowhere, SO far as we have
seen, have the blacks been eager TO claim office,
and nine-tenths OF all the clamor for their
selection as candidates has been raised by
Whlles Of course, we presume, they VIII, IN
some instances, be candidates, but only because
they are deemed tit, not because they are black.
AS rule, they will vote for the most compe-
tent Republicans suggested. regardless OF their
color. They are not likely TO make color
qualification when they have so long suffered
unjustly because of that absurd discrimina-
tion. "-Tiibune.
The World predicted that filing the greater
part of the Southern offices with ignorant
negroes just let loose from degrading slavery,
would either lead. to bloody conflict of
races or cause the retention of the Federal
troops in that section to keep the peace. The
Tribune replies, not by showing, or attempting
to show, that these consequences would not
naturally follow, but by denying the proba-
bility that negro voters will prefer negro can
didates. Assuming the consequences of negro
ofice-holding to be conceded, we proceed to
rebut the denial that the negroes will seek
Office.
OF course we are not dealing with certain
ties, only with probabilities. The question
is, whether it is probable that a party made
up of negroes and whites in the pro-
portion of nine to one, or nineteen to one,
will give a majority of the offices to the
whites. Taking the alleged natural and
the enacted political equality of the races
as the basis of our reasoning, spirit of equity
would divide the offices between the two in
proportion to their numbers. If the races are
naturally equal, intellectual capacity will be
equally distributes; and if the whites claim a
larger proportion of the offices than the voters
they furnish bear to the whole party the
blacks will Justly say that the equality which
s asserted in theory is denied in practice.
Against such violations of logic and justice
the blacks will have complete security in the
greater preponderance of their numbers, and
their consequent power OF prevention and re-
dress. They will be ten to one or twenty to
one in every caucus, and their delegates will
bear proportionate sway in every convention.
! If, by greater skill in intrigue the whites
should nevertheless get more than their pro-
| pOrtionate share of nominations, the negroes
would rely on their superior numbers at the
! polls, and refuse to accept the candidates. If
| the negroes do not monopolize the Southern
| inability. ........ -..r ..
The Acknowledgment of nearly all the intel
! hgent and capable Southern whites tends to
bring capacity and political experience into
disrepute. The negroes are not likely to be
wiser than the laws which invest them with
! power When the laws set stigma on capacity
and experience, the negro, who derives all his
! Importance from the same laws, will not hold
these qualifications in honor. When the laws
which make him eligible to all offices, declare
everybody ineligible who has ever held an
Office, they educate the negro into contempt
! for mental qualifications, and teach him that a
community is more likely to prosper by ostra-
Ching its most capable men than by eleoting
them to office. Even if the negroes should be
disposed to vote for qualified candidates they
| will not be permitted, all such men being de-
| graded into political outcasts.
Legislation which thus does violence to COM
mon sense and inverts the order of nature by
ordaining that the tail of society which con-
tains no brains shall be its head, and the head
which has the brains shall draggle in the dirt,
such preposterous legislation leads to no good.
The negroes will be justified in electing them
selves to office, when they can find nobody
more capable whom the law permits them to
choose. But government thus composed OF,
and controlled by, the most ignorant CLASSES,
VIII excite the contempt and derision of the
intelligent part of the community. II can
never be self-sustaining, for the reason that
the whites who will soorn and deride il are q
majority OF the inhabitants though they may
be minority of the voters. The reconstruc-
uon scheme of Congress, therefore, entails
upon the taxpayers of the whole country the
perpetual burden of maintaining great armies
in the Southern States to keep down the
majority, and prevent a bloody conflict of the
two races thus plaoad In ,,DnaturaI ralations