The weekly echo. [volume] (Lake Charles, Parish of Calcasieu, La.) 1868-1876, 1868-02-29


: Presidential election.
: The Radical proposition might be, in
general terms, as follows, applicable to
oil the Southern States:
Resolved, That any one of the
"rebeI States shall be admitted to the
! right of voting in the next Presidential
election as soon as it shall be proved to
dissatisfaction of the National Central
Committee of the Radical party sitting
at Washington, that such reconstructed
State viii vote for the Radical candidate
for the Presidency next November.
The reconstruction legislation of Con-
gress means only this and nothing more !:
and it is evidently resolved to be salts
fed with nothing less Such at least is
the conclusion to be drawn from these
demonstrations In both Houses, by men
who have been rebuked by their own
constituents for passing these schemes
to stife the expressions of the public
will, which they themselves had in
voked, and to establish in power within
a State, demonstrated minority, com
posed of multitudes selected because
they are without property, instruction
or intelligence.
This case of Alabama, the first brought
up in Congress as test case, is as apt
an illustration as can be desired, of the
principles, or rather what want of prin-
ciples of the Radical chiefs who are
pressing on this motion.
In 1860 Alabama had population of
nearly million 1854, POI; of these more
than half a million, (526,43 with
$4,000 voters. were free whites. in
whom was vested, by it's constitution
the entire sovereign power of the State.
In 1867, with these relations of num-
berssnOt materially changed, military
authority from Washington disfran-
chises the whites and enfranchises the
negroes, and orders the making of O.
new constitution, without the consent
OF the community which it forcibly dis
solved In this condition new State
is made out of the wreck. of that which
had been demolished by arbitrary vio-
lence. The results of the new creation
if upheld by Federal power. will be I'M
deniably these:
A State will have been dissolved and
recreated without the consent of the
The new community will have been
organized by q power outside of the
State acting as despots in contempt of
the general constitution which is bind
ing upon all
The political community which is
supported in creating this new. State
does not include one IN ten most preba-
bly, not one in twenty, of the voters un-
der the old constitution
The whole number of votes cast is
notascertained precisely, but it is evil
IDENTIFY less than 10000; if they We're all
white, there would be not more than
half OF the legal voters of 1860. .....
But OF the legal voters of 1860, only
few hundreds-say few thousands .
voted! The result is that less, than sixty
thousand newly created voters creates o
government for a million of souls. of
whom half a million are whites, and the
Iolce OF q hundred, Thousand whites is
Iileneed. .". III " -
The case is worse for Radical consist
9ncy in this, that they specially created
ne onstltuency, towhom the question
vas referred. The number of registered
'oters In Alabama was 165, 900, the very
'reatures Of radicalsm. A goodly num-
'er OF these in North Alabama voted to
eject the constitution proposed. At the
'uCslde, the number of asserting votes
annot much exceed $4,000, and there
ore not even One-third of the number
I the electors elected and registered by
themselves. has approved the work,
The bantlingE which Sherman and
are moving to have introduced
alto the family Of sovereign States-the
quail in rights and dignity to New York
nd Ohio-is, therefore, the product of
military dictatorship, acting outside
the constitution, against the viii OF
az entire original constituency against
40 remonstrance and repugnance of o. q
lear majority of the whole population,
without the assent of any part Of the
ohtlcal or electoral power Of the old
tate without ever the assent Ofa ma