The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1868-02-18

ten now excluded rebel States will be back
again In Congress. and fully represented at Chi
cago by delegations including liberal sprink-
ling of aspiring Africans. Should these calcu-
lations DO fulfilled the question Of Southern
reconstruction will be settled before the formal
opening Of the Presidential contest, all the
States will be in the Union and in the fight,
and all discussions upon this plan, that plan
and the other plan Of Southern reconstruction
will, for practical purposes. be at an end. A
military force will doubtless be kept for some
time longer in the newly reconstructed States,
as in Tennessee, but subject as in Tennessee
to the requisition Of the State authorities and
not lording 1t over them.
But still this law of universal negro suffrage
and OF negro supremacy established by this
Congress over the reconstructed rebel States
VIII have its influence, from Maine to Califor-
MIA, in the elections Of this year to the next
Congress. Yielding the point on the Presiden-
tiai issue, the opposition elements may still
vanquish the radicals In Congress. For in
stance, the returns Of the town elections Of
this State, lately held and still In progress
indicate that the democratic majority of fifty
thousand last fall ON the State ticket is not yet
shaken, even by the Syracuse republican nomi-
nation of General Grant and II Is doubtless
because the late reaction In the popular mind
is fixed against the excuses Of this radical
Congress. The name Of General Grant for the
Presidency we believe will rally the Union
army and the Union party Of the war to his
support; but still an Independent battle may
be fought for the next Congress which will
secure conservative House of Representa-
tves. even with tho gain TO the radicals
which they will not get--of the whole fifty
members from the reconstructed Southern
States.
On the money question the republicans have
difficult and perplexing problem to settle.
1t they 60 with Senator Edmunds and that
wing Of the republican camp for gold to the
bondholders and bank rags to the people, they
lose the other wing, headed by Stevens, Butler
and others. for the payment of the bondholdcrs
in greenbacks when not otherwise specified in
the bond. II the party in its Chicago platform
take either side it will be shorn of much Of its
strength in its struggle for Congress, and il it
take neither side the opposition may fight 1t to
advantage in every Congressional district as .
party not to be trusted by either side. The
great military achievements Of General Grant
will decide the issue in his case but in the
Congressional elections the great legislative
questions Of taxation, expenditures, the re-
demption Of the national debt, the bonds and
the banks and the tariff, and the internal reve-
nue. system, will be applied as the test to every
candidate, together with the issues Of negro
suffrage and negro supremacy. Surely, upon
all these questions, with any degree of skill and
activity, the opposition elements may so far
revolutionize the next Congress as to make
Grant o conservative President, in Difference
to the controlling voice OF conservative
House OF Representatives.