The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1868-09-22

reason to fear them II they had or that the
best interests of the State could not be pro-
NOTED by the Legislature as it was when
elected. Doubtless there were colored men in
tue Legislature who were not over-wise. Per-
baps the Legislature has not yet been seen in
this or any other country which has not con-
tanned certain number OF men whose
opinions on almost any subject whatever
would be Of small value. But regard ess Of
good policy, of the local law, and, as we
think, of ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS of every
thing but the traditionary prejudice against
negroes-the majority in the Georgia Legisls-
ture have just driven out of the House aud
Senate every one OF the few men Of color who
had dared 10 be elected to seats in it. Aud
this is only the prelude to other things that
none of us will like so well. II is not in
tended by the Democratic majority that the
Georgia negro should cast vote any more
than it is intended that he should be voted
for. 1t is intended, in the case of each negro
in tnat State, that the man who formerly
bought and sold him shall regulate his whole
existence, social as well as POLITICAL and
nothing, we take it, is much surer than that
before this time next year we shall see in ope-
ration Georgia Black Code not so very differ
ent from the slave laws of 1858, much as has
happened within the decade.
There are hardly two other Southern States
in which 1t is mpossible-indeed, in which it
is not probable-that there will be the same
defeat of almost all the results of the war. In
Mississippi it has already taken place. In that
State-the most degraded and ignorant, per-
haps, of all the States of the Union-it is now,
on the whole, almost as we'll, from the South
ern point of view, to be the employer of a
negro as it was formerly to be the owner of
him. He is not salable now; but he can be
kept in ones hands almost as closely as before,
and enc is almost as little responsible for the
just or decent treatment of him. So also of
Texas, as well as of Mississippi and Georgia;
SO OF Arkansas; 50, to great extent, of Ala
bama. Louisiana is at peace because of the
presence of Union soldiers, and for no other
reason; and we ourselves think that if we ex-
cept North Carolina and Florida-which latter
is so small as hardly to be counted-nothng
better could be said of the South generally
than that it seems sure that the negroes will
soon be reduced to a condition not very far
removed from their old condition, and that in
most towns south of Tennessee no white man
who is not believer in 'white mans gov
vernment" is going to be allowed to- live in
comfort or safety.
If nothing worse we're to happen than the
social ostracism of the Northern men who have
gone to the South, the matter would still be
lamentable enough. On account of the dis
couragement of immigration, an immense tract
ofthe henationalterritoryw would be condemned, for
a generation or two longer, to lie half-inhabited
and halfcultivated by comparatively un-
civilized people-more or less barbarous mas
ters and serfs. But If we may judge by the
course taken by Georgia, the ostracism of
Northerners at the South is no. to be all that
We have gained by the war. We are, as we
have said, to have, besides that, the virtual
enslavement Of the negro population. We
have not yet heard any suggestion of a way to
prevent Georgia's proceeding as far as she
Gkes-and we know how far that is-in the
way upon which she has entered. She has
Aocl iral niI To- o,,Ia
may be under her constitution; but whether
they are or not, who is to say no to her Lsgis-
latureY Nothing hinders her declaring negroes
incapable of voting. Nothing, we imagine,
short of United States army, or, possibly the
fear of one, can hinder her from taking her own
course in all respects. We have made the
mistake of letting the South slip from the
grasp of military power before We could be said
TO have honestly completed the work of recon-
struction. 1t may have been necessary to take
that erroneous course. Perhaps If We had not
done ill., we should have seen the Democrats in
power doing worse. We can congratulate our
selves on having at least attempted to do our
duty by the people whom We freed from their
masters and the people whom we freed from
their slaves--on having done something towards
bringing the South into conformity with the
customs and laws which regulate society
among the more civilized nations. But it is
not to be denied that, as regards this work, we
seem to have attempted rather than to have
succeeded. The state of affairs in Georgia and
Tennessee is such as may well make us doubt
whether, between the two stools Restoration
and Reconstruction, we have not fallen to the
gIound-have not had all the trouble and
anxiety of trying to make a new South, and
have not, after all, unconditionally, or all but
Internationally, readmitted the old South
the South in which Andersonville was possible,
the South Of slave-laws, of dense ignorance,
of social and political tyranny, whose very
virtues are the virtues of a time that is gone
by, and in this sge are for the most part vices
that help to keep people out of the current
of progress
II this be so-and we do not know on what
theory Georgia (except SO tar as we can keep a
Federal police there, and strengthen it to any
desirable extent) is less her own mistress
than Tennessee is, or New York, or Massa
chusetts-then heavy responsibility is laid
| on the Republican party. To do anything
towards preventing the full cOnsummation of
the plans OF the present generation of south
ern politicians and statesmen, it will be neces-
sary that the Republican party should keep in
| power. present success OF the Democratic
| party means, OF course, q restoration of the
| Union as 1t was. Four years more of Re-
| publican administration, and q Democratic
success will mean something better than
that, but not what will even then be
needed-a supervision by the enlightened
and unprejudiced part OF the country
over the rest of it-a surety on the part of all
men in the South, loyal or disloyal, that be-
| hind the governments now established there
is the irresistible force of the nation at large.
| Republican success is for the present certain
we suppose; but it has been endangered, and
easily may be endangered again. We hope
| for much from the next four wears but we