The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1867-11-02
The Elections i'm the South.

NOt"itnstanulnS the attempts OF Andy
johnson to stay the advance of reconstruc
ton in the rebel States, the work moves
steadily, irresistibly on. Guided and impell
ed by an Invisible but Omnipotent hand, the
wrath of man is made to praise God, and
we detect in the arrogance, the puffedup
pride and hate of those abandoned and in
sensate rebels, the instruments of their own
humiliation and punishment. Vanquished
on every field, broken in spirit, powerless, at
the mercy of their conquerors, and in utter
despair, the leading rebels expected to be
visited with condgn punishment for their
crimes, but, erelong, lifted by Andy John.
con, and placed partially in power, they soon
again grew arrogant, and refused even his
terms Of restoration, whose harshest meas.
ure only prohibited slavery in the rebel
States.
The Constitutional Amendment was offer
ed them. and they spurned it then followed
the Reconstruction Acts and Military Gov
ernments, with Negro Suffrage, opposed by
the same men whose turbulence and oppo.
sition earned them disfranchsement. They
proclaimed that the negro was too ignorant
and beastly to exercise the rights of suffrage,
| or know ought of the principles of govern
ment. But when the inevitable stared those
men in the face, and they saw that the ne
groes were preparing to acquit themselves,
, not as beasts, as their traducers had proph.
| ecied, but rs men, those same men boosted
! that they would vote the colored men, and
| by their own acts wrest the power from them
that Congress had placed in their hands for
self protection. The negroes were flattered
| by their late masters, who claimed to be
| their best, and only friends. and who vainly
imagined that their intended victims were
| thus deceived. The elections have been
| held in some of those States, and the result
| is ominous. Louisiana gives $4,000 Repub'
| lican majority Alabama $4,000; Nirgini.
| 10000; and Georgia is carried without OPP
position.
The rebel press. finding that the negroes
! have proven to the world by their acts that
! they are worthy to be classed as men and
reasoning beings, and that the blandish.
ments of their designing enemies have ut.
| terly failed, turn franically upon them with
! 4 storm of abuse exceeding anything Of the
! kind that ever preceded it. \ war of races
is proclaimed. and prescription and persc.
cution by the wholesale is advised by these
malignant rebel news papers, whose occu.
| patton during the rebellion was TO curse and
, heap abuse upon the "Iankees.' The right
/ loyal and sensible manner in which the col
| ored men have answered the fatery Of the
rebels and acquitted themselves is thus
graphically described by the Charlottesville
! Chronicle:
Livery conceivable effort has been made here 10 h,r.
! monze the two Every form OF overture ha,
! been made to the blacks by the whites. Every apr-
ance WAS rcsorgd 10 10 carry the elections. All has
| been in vein Drilled lko army, maio,uyrcd like
body o disciplined troops obcyins an order from The
ncg"rs have delivered their vote like concentrated
| hroad-do.
Every form Of overture has been made
| to the blacks by the whites Those over.
lures were simply to vote for the men who
would enslave them tomorrow if they had
| the power, and the negroes refused 10 do it.
hut voted for their friends. How would
white men have voted under similar circum.
stances? Precisely as the negroes did, had
they displayed the same amount of common
| sense. The negroes voted against the men
who were opposed to their freedom and to
their enjoying the rish Of the elective fran.
chise, and in favor of the candidates who
advocated those rights for colored men, and
| by SO doing they have earned praise, not
censure, and every honest man must accord
it to them. Had they been so easily be.
guiled by the batteries of their designing
enemies, as to have thrown their newly &C.
quired rights away by voting for men who
deny that they possess the capacity to vote
| intelligently, they ~%onld lave been dc.
nounced as fools.
The fact is patent to every rejecting mind,
that the colored men are better citizens, and
are competent to vote more intelligently
than the great mass of low foreigners, who
| land on our shores and fill up the ranks of
| the Copperhead party.
While the colored men of the more South
ern States are acquitting themselves as in.
telligent thinking beings, and proving their
claim TO the right of selfgovernment their
brethren of Maryland watch and pray for
| the hour to arrive, when, rs n concentrated
broadside," their votes shall be delivered,
and rebel rule in our State shall pass away
in the twinkling of an eye, and the political
party of grogsbops, prejudice and ignorance,
shall exist no more. The rebels of this
State feel the pulsations of that popular
tide which is erelong to engulph them-and
| they tremble. Let the oolored men wait
patiently, and diligently acquire knowledge,
that they may acquit themselves as men in
the day OF their deliyerance, which even
now is at its dawn.
Tome VS.. Miller.