The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-11-18
Nos. 2le and 22O South

of reconstruction is not only fully acknow-
ledged in these paragraphs, but is exposed by
reasoning which fair minds ought to accept as
conclusive. The necessity of a retreat is more
clearly apprehended by our contemporary
than the difficulty. Before proceeding to show
the futility of the proposed method, we must
detain the reader moment while we expose
the inconsistency of the Times proposal with
a position which it quite recently held.
1t is scarcely fortnight Gf our memory be
not at fault) since the Times centended that,
inasmuch as the Southern negroes are already
in the exercise of the elective franchise, the
question is closed since men cannot be divest-
ed of the privilege after they have once en-
joyed it. Everybody must perceive that the
present proposal is a complete abandonment
of that position. The retreat from ''unver-
sal' to Impartial suffrage would throw out
great majority of the negroes who have voted
in the recent elections. No matter whether
the restriction be effected by property quail
fcation or by an educational qualification, it
will shut out the greater part of the present
negro voters. A property qualification would
exclude nearly all; and an educational quail
fcation, consisting merely in ability to read
and write, would exclude at least four-ffths,
probably nine-tenths and for any evidence
that appears to the contrary, nineteen-twen-
tieths of the negro population. We are glad
that our contemporary has reconsidered aud
rejected its hasty conclusion that negro who
has once voted acquires an indefeasible right
to the elective franchise. Without such
recantation its present proposal would be a
fighty and self-stultifying absurdity.
Not less self-stultifying, although the alb
surdity requires more reasoning to set 1t forth,
is the proposal to retreat from UNIVERSAL
negro suffrage without repeating the recon-
struotion acts. These acts give universal
suffrage to the negroes, both in the election Of
IL 49, 4, - 81
fication or rejection of the new Constitutions.
But the Times discovers that Congress may
annul whatever it dislikes in those Constitu-
tions and send them back for amendment,
This strikes us as a somewhat strained inter
probation; for as we undertand it, the law
merely reserves to Congress the right to ap-
prove or reject the new Constitutions, but not
to dictate to the States what provisions shall
be inserted in new ones. For if Congress may
dictate one provision of State Constitution
it may dictate all; and it might as well impose
at once a ready-made Constitution of its own
framing. We make this criticism in passing,
but lay no stress on it. For the sake of the
argument we will admit that Congress may
send back the constitutions for revision, with
an indication of the provisions it requires to
! be rescinded or inserted. We will suppose
the conventions to be reassembled, new basis
! Of suffrage adopted, and the constitutions as
thus amended again submitted to the people
| for ratification. Now comes the pinch: who
shall vote in this second ratifoationl The
negroes in several States are a majority o.
! the voters, and the Times propo es to submit
to their decision the question whether they
shall be disfranchised The question cannot
be submitted to different body of voters, fol
in that case Congress would have to back
out-which is the very thing the Times seeks
| to avoid. That the negroes after having been
once admitted to the suffrage, will never be
deprived of it by their own votes is a self
evident proposition. To remit the question
to the same identical constituency would
| therefore be great absurdity; but if Congress
ordains its submission to different constitu-
ncy it would undermine and subvert the very
| Cundation of its reconstruction policy. An
| open, manly renunciation would be more Gre
ditable than any such a pitiful attempt by
Congress to ''sneak out of difficulties into
which it proudly strutted."
Having thus exposed the futility of any
| other plan Of retreat than frank renuncia-
! tion by Congress of its collapsing reconstruc
| ton scheme, it may not be smiss to remark OF
the suddenness of the light which has dawned
| on our respectable contemporary. Neither the
reasoning nor the recommendation would have
been admitted into its columns three weeks
| ago. The intrinsic absurdity Of universal
negro suffrage was precisely the same before
| the great Democratic victories as now; and we
are net without hope that further manifesto
tion Of public opinion may give still greater
clearness of vision to Republican journalists
! We should probably all run sadly astray if W,
were not called to revise our views by thl
| rectifying good sense of that public between
| whom and leading journal there is a constan
reciprocation of mutually eduoative influences
We must do our contemporary the justice Il
say that few journals which aspire to mould
the public thought seem more habitually dis
posed to recognize the cOr populi as a veritabl
| lor Del,