The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1867-08-17


ministered as before. The same military
subordinates will remain at their posts in the
Southern military districts, and the only
change will be in the tactics of the ofioe-hunt-
ing crew, whose Presidential game has been
so badly spoiled. They will have to begin
with their work anew.
General Sickles and tho Charleston
Board OF Crade-UntversRl Amnesty.
From The ". Y. Herald.
General Sickles has addressed to the Board
of Trade in Charleston a communication in
answer to the protest of that Board against
the enforcement of certain of his orders. A
double interest attaches to this communica-
tion, as an able paper itself and as the subjects
of which it treats have just been considered in
Cabinet, and decided as we are somewhat
vaguely told, in sense adverse to the Gene
RAILS views. The document rectes distinctly
the course of events that resulted in making
military law paramount in South Carolina
information very necessary to the Board of
Trade-and then points out that the orders in
question were issued by the proper military
authority purely in the interests of the people,
to secure their comfort and prosperity, and to
stay legal proceedings that would be annoying
and mischievOus without securing any good
infict the greatest miseries upon the people.
The protest of the Board of Trade is, first,
against the Generals modification of the
whisky trade; second, against his abolition
of distress for rent; third, against his order
staying the enforced collection of certain
classes of debts. 1t needs, indeed only
to designate the character of these several
orders to see that their purpose could only
be that of tightening the present burdens of
the people, and the communication referred
to abundantly shows the wisdom of the two
latter in pointing out that while relieving
poer creditors, they are no actual injury to
debtors, since suits enforced at the present
time could not secure the creditor a satsfac-
tory remedy and would only render it impos-
sible that the debtor could ever pay. They
have the effect of modified and limited bank
ruptcy acts This leaves the Board of Trade
to stand as the especial representatives and
champions of the whisky interest, which they
doubtless are; and in the peculiar prominence
that the greet frauds on the revenue are giving
to that interest it will receive but little sym
pathy. 1t is to be hoped that the President
has not modified the effect of any one of these
wise orders.
The progress of events is giving also pecu-
liar weight to another communication from
General Sickles-namely, his letter to Senator
Trumbull, written some time during the sum-
mer and made public just before the close of
the last session of Congress. In that letter
the Commander of the Second District exposed
fOrcibly certain notable inconsistencies in the
state of our laws regarding the South. Radi-
cal reconstruction, for instance, gives votes to
all the niggers, and it tells the country that
this is necessary in order that the votes of
these loyal negroes may act as a fair political
balance to the votes of the only half loyal
Southern whites. The country sees this argu-
ment clearly, admits that it is cogent, and the
niggers get the votes. Then the radical plan,
having thus provided for the niger, takes up
the Southern white man, whom we ought
to consider ne longer dangerous, since his
political power is nulliied or balanced by
the vote just given to the freedman. Having
thus balanced the white mans vote, how
ever, the radical plan next takes it away.
Southern white men are DISTINGUISHED, and
the country is told that this is necessary
in order to punish them for rebellion. At this
stage the people get puzzled a little. Rebel
hon is wrong is treason, and to punish it is
right, no doubt. But, then, all the radical
political leaders up at the head of the line have
managed to let off such head Rebels as Davis
with no punishment at all. And why, if the
worst Rebels go free, should the deluded
masses be punished with the loss of free
mans birthright-his vote But then, if you
must and will punish, and in Furnishing de-
prive these hundreds of thousands of Southern
AhOh VI IielI NOL6S, WDaJ vote Is JndL
which you have balanced by giving votes to
the negroes Not these votes which you have
taken away from others. Perhaps it may be
that this balance is to be used yet against the
vote OF the Northern white man-the splendid
fellow who walked through fire for four years
to save the country. The vote of a man who
lost his arm at Antietam may be nullifed by
that OF stalwart chattel, who hoed the corn
that was eaten in Lees camp at Spottsyl-
These discrepancies in our plans of recon
struction, one balancing the white mans vote
ana the other taking it away, were forcibly
exposed in the letter in ouestion. General
Sickles showed that the two plans together Sc
cured TOO much; that they guaranteed an un-
necessary degree of safety to republican prin-
ciPies' and did it at the expense of the good
Will OF the whole mass of the white men and
the pest interests OF the country. His con-
cdnslons cru, were expr essed in these wOrds:-
"Ihe true conservative puarantea AGAINST re-