New-York tribune., 1869-06-09
THE POLICY or PRESCRIPTION

The following letter, written TO frlend III
West Virginia, i'll reply to one which insisted
on the necessity of sweeping disfranchise-
ment in the late Slave States, has recently got
into the newspapers:
NBw.YoRK TRIBUNE NEW YORK Nov IL, 1863
MY DEAR SIR: have yours OF the 10th Its aiding
positions have long been understood and appreciated in
Every year one thousand Of your Rebels die and one
thousand r more their sons become of age Yon can't
disanchise hem You have nov i nye thousand maopiy
iy OF thousand Then the Rebels VIII be enfrin-
chsed spite Of yOu and the Blacks will be left under
foot-and you underestimate these at two thousand.
Go your way and II the Rebels don't have you
under foot In less than six years.
speak from wide experience when tell yon that
your house Is built on the sand 1t cannot stand Every
mand for Amnesty strengthened Now, you can amnesty
the Rebels s9GRhe question ion T be- shall 3 they amnesty To
certain fate in theirs. Yours, HORACE GREELEY.
The Troy Wing copies the above, and de-
murs as follows:
'It seems to US there Ia slight error in Mr. Greeeys
arithmetic It takes for granted that there will be no
immigration 10 West Virginia OF loyal men. 1t takes for
granted that the of Rebels will all be Rebels IL
for granted that six years VIII see politics and parties just
metc The Rebels dsfranchsed for six years will be un-
the work Of Reconstruction during that
there could be no objection TO Universal Amnesty Mr..
reeleys policy OF Universal Amnesty for Universal suf
now for shall have the Suffrage without the Amnesty
The great mistake OF Congress has been ts neglect to
least Objectionable OF all punishmens for treason. The
disability could be removed at any time; And. until t
could be- removed, the loyal men would have as they
ought to nave the sole control OF political affairs
Response by The Tribune.
/. The Wing, after all, does not seem able to
take distance rs it desires. 1t holds to Uni
versal Suilrage-after little. IL would en-
franchise the Robels-but not just yet. 1t
would disfIanchise for a purpOse-to secure
Al d. q
we understand it, it would let every one vote.
Our objections are briefly these:
/. If Congress had disfranchised all who
aided the Rebellion, it would have disfran-
cliscd nearly every White in several of the
States, leaving none but Blacks-most of them
Just released from Slavery-to exercise the
Right of Suffrage. Many of them did not then
even know what vote meant. They could
not have held an election that was not gro
tesque farce. Officers and Legislators thus
chosen, Judges and courts thus constituted,
could not have commanded public respect
. @ Had Congress-say in 1SG5-6-dsfranchised
every Rebel, and thus thrown several States
completely into the hands of their cx-slaves.
the next election would have upset us and
chosen q Democratic House of Representatives.
But for the New Orleans massacre and John
sons Swinging round the circle we should
probably have been beaten as it was; but to
have DISTINGUISHED nearly all the Whites, and
thrown the Southern States completely into the
hands of the Blacks, would have insured our
overwhelming defeat The Wing seems TO for
get that every JohnsOn-Se Seymour Democrat was
SO far in sympathy with the Rebels as to insist
that they should all be cnfranchised and the
cIyo loft fo thcir fondap u,aroioa Uifbnut
even cirH rights guaranteed them by Congress,
much less political. And these Democrats were
at least 10 Of every 25 voters in the States of
New Hampshire, Connecticut, New York, New
Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and West
Virginia. Had VIC done what The Wing would
have they would have been thirteen out of
every twenty-five, and we should have gone
under to stay. Then we should have had all
the Rebels enfranchised and the Blacks put
under their feet. That is just where The
Wings policy would have landed US.
III. 1t is always essential in determining what
you wiH do to consider what you can do. How
are you to distinguish Rebels-that is, those
who cere Rebels years ago-so as to disfran-
chse theml West Virginia tries TO do it-her
Constitution and laws are stringently proscrip-
tlve-yet she polled last Fall 22,2lS votes for
Camden, Democratic" candidate for Governor
lone of the bitterest old Clay WhgsI to 2O,935
for Stevenson, Republican: Republican ma
jority, 4,717. Does 'any one imagine that so
many as 10000 of those votes for Camden were
Unionists in our late struggled We doubt if
there were 5000. Yet they vote, and there is
no help for it. Missouri, in spite of the most
stringent prescription and "irOn-cladn oaths and
registrations, polled last Fall &C. $50 votes for the
Democratic Governor, and 59,7S9 for Seymour
for President We presume at least two-thrds
of these were at heart (and many of them in
deed) Rebels in 1864. They carry twenty-odd
of the COunties-some of them by ten or
twenty to one. What do you propose to do about
it'll Why even in Tennessee, where no one
could vote except as such as Gov. Brownl0w
considered loyal, seventeen Counties gave ma
jorities for Seymour, who received 26,311 votes
not less than 10000 of them cast by men who
had been red-hot Rebels. And now we have two
Republican candidates running for Governor
one of them openly for Universal Suffrage
We insist that facts shall not be ignored, and
that they prove the inutility and impossibility
of persistent prescription.
III. The Wing says we stake for granted"
that the sons of Rebels viii all be Rebels"
Well: we do take for granted that, SO long as
the fathers are disfranchised, the sons will
vote with the party that seeks TO enfranehise
them. Is MT that a reasonable presumptionf
". The Wing says we further assume that
there will be no loyal immigration to West
Virginia. No. We take nothing for granted
except that the Democrats are all opposed to
the further prescription of the late Rebels. Is
that deniedH Aud who can say that more Re-