The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1868-08-24
SPIRIT OF THE PRESS.
EDITORIAL OPINIONS OF THB LEADING JOURNALS
UPON CURRENT ToPIOs-coMPILKD EVERY
DAY PoR THE 8vENING TELEGRAPH.
The Next step in Reconstruction.

From the ". Y. Nation.
There is, of course, a good deal OF allowance
TO be made in every canvass for bupcombe and
sxaggeration in estimating the amount OF
weight which ought to be attached to cam
paign speeches; and although Southern ora
tors could not complain II we took literally all
they are Just now saying, probably very few
people do take ii literally. 1t is most likely
that neither Blair, Wade Hampton, nor For
rest feels nearly as valorous or as bloodthirsty
as he talks. If they did, they would not only
belle all our past experience of Southern
speeches. but of all campaign speeches. II
camp aign orators really went through all the
emotions they describe themselves as going
through few of them would ever witness the
Presidential election. There are limits to human
endurance; and if speakers usually found
like General Battle, the other day, at Mobile
that mo language could express the emo
tions that swelled their bosoms," there would
be grave beside every stump. But there is
little doubt that though Southern politicians
do no mean as much mischief as their words,
taken literally, would indicate, they mean a
good deal of mischief There is good reason
for believing that they do not intend to be
very scrupulous about the use of intimidation
as means of influencing the coming
election. They are busy getting up
conservative party'' amongst the negroes by
moral suasion, and any negro who is con-
vinced by their arguments that the Southern
planters are his best friends, they appear to
be receiving into their ranks with good deal
of cordiality. But then, it would be mistake
to suppose that they give up as hopeless cases
those negroes who are not convinced by their
arguments. For them they are providing a
simple and efficient system of social persecu-
tion, by which, in some parts ofthe country at
least, any negro who is not armed with card,
issued by white committee, testifying to his
E'soundness," will not receive employment in
any capacity. But there will, of course, be a
large number Of eases in which both the moral
suasion and the denial of employment will
prove Intellectual; and the great question of
Southern politics now is, how will these and
the white Unionists-'the carpet baggers'
and "scallawags"-be dealt with on the first
Tuesday in November next? We suspect
roughly. We doubt very much whether, in
a large number of districts in ths South, vot-
ing the Radical ticket at the polls will not be
service of much difficulty and great personal
danger.
Now, this ought not to be. If all we have
heard during the last year or two of the "re-
generation of the Southern States through
the adoption of the new Constitutions and the
readmission of their members to Congress has
been true, there ought to be no more ground
for anxiety about the elections in Georgia and
Alabama than about the elections in New
York or Connecticut. But it was not true, or
true only in Pickwickian sense. Southern
society remains in the States which are in the
Union exactly what it is in the States which
are out of the Union. The loyal portion of
the population are represented in Congress,
which is all very we'll so far as it goes; but the
disloyal portion is no smaller, and no less
fierce and bitter than it has ever been. What
we have gained by reconstruction is, that the
government of the restored State has been
handed back to those of it's own people who
are fit to be trusted with it, and that the
negroes are being familiarized with
the duties of political life. But the tie which
binds the State to the Union has not been
really strengthened, nor have the normal
guarantees Of social order. No shifting of the
power from one hand to another, no distribu-
ton of the franchise, no administration Of
Oaths, will do this. Nothing will do it but the
growth of new habits on the part Of the people
A State is made peaceful and prosperous, not
by the appearance OF a certain number OF gen.
tlemen in black broadcloth in certain seats in
the House and Senate, and the accession of
Jones, in place of Brown, to the governorShip
of shrievalty, but by the acquisition by the
mass of the people of certain ways of looking
at life, and their adoption of certain standards
of propriety for the regulation of their conduct.
If the mass of men in South Carolina had the
same notions of the objects of living and OF
the difference between vice aud virtue, COM
fort and discomfort, as the mass of men in
about the rebellion were substantially what
they are now, you nigh. safely let them send
Hampton and Forrest, or anybody else they
pleased to Congress, and let everybody vote
without any test oath or other restriction. A
man might approve of the Rebellion most
heartily, but if he had a sincere respect for
the law, or, at all events, hearty horror for
violence and outrage, he would prove a very
good citizen, and discussion might fairly be
relied on to cure his political heresies. But
the mass of men in most Southern States are
not in this condition, or in anything like it,
and therefore it is that what We call "recon-
struction''-that is, the restoration of civil
government in the Southern States, and the
temperance of their members in Congress
instead of being the "regeneration' of South
ern society," is only one of the various agencies
by which that regeneration is to be effected.
The foremost amongst them, we say still, as
we have frequently said during the past two
years, and we say it now more confidently
than we have ever said it before, are time and
order. What does most to make the spectacle
of the political equality Of the negroes odioui
to SOutherners is what made the spectacle o
negro freedom odious to them-want Of fami
liarity with it. What makes it so hard fo
them to have negroes vote is their nevel
having seen them vote. What makes it 81
hard for them to keep their knives out o
negro ribs, and their pistols away from negro
heads, is the fact that Outl ages on coloret
people, or, in fact, on any people, are not as
sociated in their minds, as they are in tn,
minds of the members of more civilized com
munities, with legal punishment. 1t is, there
fore, in the highest degree importantly
matter who represents the South in Con
gress-that the State governments should
be in the hands of persons who will ust