New-York tribune., 1868-01-03
THE FIRST GUN.
strange.
enough.

and perhaps III was no more lnln naluIal lhdI
he should make the most of his chance. -Four
columns and half on reconstruction and negro
suffrage, against one and quarter on the do
mestic affairs of California, is good deal OF
sack to a very little bread. But as an expo
sition of the principles upon which the Demo
Gratis apparently design to carry on the cam
paign, Gov. Haight's verbose declaration Is not
without interest. The sum of his argument is
this: 1. The unreconstructed States never went
out of the Union; they never could be put
out; they, consequently, are not out now, and
their Representatives have as good right to
seats in Congress as any member from New
England or the Vest the Military Govern
ments are usurpations; every interference OF
the military commanders with civil affairs Is Il
subverson of the Constitution. 2. We fought
the last war without any purpose of estab-
fishing "a negro empire on our Southern
border the negro is brute and barba-
rian. and if we give him the ballot he will be
certain to abuse it. Here, then, are the two
chief planks of Haight's platform: Immediate
readmissIon of the Southern States; dsfran-
chisement of the negroes.
But the first point is, after all, not in con-
trOversy. The Republican party Is the great
advocate of the immediate admission of the
Southern Representatives to Congress. Our
policy of reconstruction aims at that very thing
upon which Gov. Haight insists. They would
have been in their seats at Washington long
AGO if we could have had our way 1t is Gov.
Haight's party which keeps them ont. II is
Gov Haight'S party which prolongs the mill
taly rule, which suspends the hdJeds corpus,
which interfercs with trial by jury, which in
terrupts the proceedings of courts, which keeps
alive heartburnings and sectional animositles,
which arrays brother against brother and race
against race, and which * now striving, for the
sake of little wretched political capital, TO
plunge the unhappy and suffering South into
miseres greater than those through which it
has already passed. If the liberal offers of re-
admission made by the Republican party at the
close of the war had been accepted, the vacant
seats in the House and the Senate Chamber
would long aeS' have been filled. IL was the
Northern Democrats who melted the Southern
States to stand out. Ii Is they who still urge
them to hold aloof until they can come back
with the laurcls of victory on their brow and
the sceptcr of power in their hand.
Neither is there any heart in the Copperhead
complaint that white Rebels are disfranchised.
Individually, as all readers of THE TRIBUNE
know, we are not in favor of this disfranchise-
ment. We believe it would be better policy TO
let the conquered Rebels vote but the number
of those excluded from the polls on account of
completely in the rebellion is too small to effect
the result, and Gov. IIaight knows that as well
as we do. In some of the States the blacks
have a majority of the registered voters, but
in all or nearly all these they are likewise
majority of the population. There is only one
point upon which the Democrats are really in-
tent, and that is the exclusion of the freedman
from the polls Reconstruction they will not
have until it can be effected by the same guilty
hands which overthrow the old state govern
ments. and by those hands alone. Southern
Representatives in Congress they will not have,
if those Representatives are 10 speak the wishes
and advocate the interests of the loyal as well
as the dsloyal population. There shall be no
voting in the Southern States, if the black
man must vote as well az the white.
There shall be no civil law no courts, no legis-
latures if Justice must be administered with
impartial hand to the lofty and the lowly alike.
There must be, exclaims Gov. lIaight, dis
elimination in political privileges founded on
Grace or color, and there is 10 line that can
abe drawn, unless suffrage is confined to the
"white population" The negro, he says, is
brute, a savage, barbarian, an impure ele-
"meDto of political power, an inferior creature,
possibly human TO limited extent Though he
does not seem so sure about that; and it is
"a disgrace to our country and the age We
al ~ Sl.,A I. fhn 10,
participate in federal legislation. Let him vote,
and the Southern whites will be enslaved and
degraded Let him vote, and we shall have
second st. Domingo on our Southern bOr-
der. Let him vote, and the noblest of the
Southern chivalry will flee into exile an
antipathy of races will be kindled, and our
political contests will be attended with strife
and bloodshed If Gov. Haght believes
his own prophecies, he is one of the most
credulous of mankind If there is to be q second
st. Domingo its horrors can only be caused by
the same thing which caused the frst-not the
emancipation of the slaves, but the attempt to
reenslave the freedmen. If hatreds and warfare
arise, they can only come from the whites if
there is antipathy between the ex-master and
the ex-slave, it will be only because the ex-
master persists in Withholding from the freed
man his legitimate privileges; because he will
not remember that Slavery, root and branch,
has been abolished forever Keep the "nigger"
down; don't let him have the ballot TO defend
himself with; don't let him share in the Gov
ernment which he gave his blood to defend;
let the Rebels who enslaved him be his spokes-
men and guardians; put the lamb under the
care of the wolf, and if the innate justice of
the Northern people revolts at this policy, if
the loyal masses ask for the fruits of their hard
won victory, if even the South itself grows
restive under your schemes and yearns to ac-