The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-03-19
The ALBANIA BILL DROPPED.

Dispatch IS from Washington indicate that
the reco'- nmitment of the Alabama bill, at the
instar zee of Thaddeus Stevens, has resulted in
the informal defeatof the measure This fact
Is doubly significant. as proof of the extra
ordinary influence still exercised by Mr. Ste
vens over the House, and as a prognostic OF
impending change in radical strategy with re-
gard to the admission of reconstructed States.
The objection urged by him, that the bill
would shock the popular sense of justice by
exhibiting Congress in the attitude of refusing
to abide by conditions deliberately prescribed
by their previous legislation, while it may
show that the radical domination does not
feel so secure of power as to be wholly indif-
ferent TO public sentiment, can afford no clue
to the precise course which Congress will
take on the subject of admission. Whatever
this course may be, however, its chief purpose
will be to subserve the interests Of the radical
ticket in the approaching presidential cleo
ton. Only few weeks ago there were in
dubitable signs of a project on the part of the
radical leaders in Congress for summarily in
Producing Southern negro States, regardless
of previously prescribed preliminaries, in
order that they might reinforce the voting
strength of radicalism to a sufficient
degree to offset apprehended losses
in the North. The Alabama bill was evidently
designed as precedent initiatory to series
Of acts to be adopted in the accomplishment
of this policy. What, then, are We to infer
from the sudden quietus which is given to this
measure by the opposition of MIR. Stevens?
Does it mean the abandonment by the radical
in, with indecent irregularity and precipitancy,
Southern negro reinforcement to overcome
an anticipated anti-radical majority in the
North Is it possible that they feel so reas-
sured of the States already in the Union by
the small ground lost by the Republicans in
New Hampshire, as no longer to believe it
necessary to hurry in Southern negro States
for the sole object of carrying the presidential
election? Or, have they concluded, despair
ing of the practicability of the last named ex-
pedient to make virtue of necessity, and as
much as possible to conciliate conservative
sentiment in the North by not pushing to ex-
tremity measures which plainly tended to the
At this moment these questions admit of no
answers except such as would repeat them in
the conjectural, instead of the interrogative
form. If it shall prove true that the aban-
Comment of the Alabama bill signifies the
suppression of that part of the radical pro-
eramme which contemplated the Inauguration
of negro supremacy in the South by mill
tary force, the fact will imply a con-
fession of the failure of the congressional
scheme of reconstruction. But the radical
leaders, in that case, will do their utmost
to avert from their party the odium of this
failure by devising some new plan for bringing
in the ten excluded States on basis, if not
more sound in point of justice and statesman
ship, at least more specious and popular than
the one which, after SO much vexation and
trouble, had come to naught. The key to
such basis is probably contained in the inti-
nation of a desire on the part of Mr..
Stevens to apply the principle of univer-
sal suffrage to the States hereafter to be
admitted, or of suffrage only limited by
reason of crime attested by Judicial
conviction. Inasmuch as no Southern man
has yet been convicted of crime for having
participated in the late "rebellion," the
effect of carrying out such a condition would
be to cancel all the acknowledgements on ac-
count of the war, incorporated in State Con-
situations adopted by the radical conventions
The policy, in brief, would be based on the
combination, in theory at least, of universal
suffrage and universal amnesty How it
would affect radicalism in the North, and in
the South, is an open problem.
There is one other conjuncture. Stevens is
known to be intensely hostile to Grant He
has declared that the nomination of Grant by
the Republicans would be a cowardly surren-
der of principle at the summons Of question
able expediency, and he now finds that all
this work of reconstruction for which he has
toiled SO energetically and so persistently,
whilst it may enable the radicals to master
the Democrats in name, will, in fact result in
imposing a master on the Republican party
1t is possible that this conviction may have
impelled him to assume that attitude of op-
position which has compelled the committee
to abandon the reconstruction project. Is it
blow at Grant, whose increasing power must
be very distasteful to the veteran leader?