Delaware tribune. [volume] (Wilmington, Del.) 1867-1877, 1869-10-14
THE VIRGINIA. RADICALS.

|
We do protest most earnestly against the
manner in which the Radical Republicans OF
Virginia are treated by portion of the
Northern Republican Press. Because they,
familiar with the interior working and COM
position of this so called Conservative party,
view things from different stand point from
their northern critics, and hence, fail to ap-
preciate the beauties of universal amnesty or |
to fall in with the hollow and insincere move |
ment which looks SO fair on the surface, they |
are intoerantly denounced for their intoler- |
ence and insolently lectured on their imprac- |
ticable stubbornness.
| Now we know some of these men thus
abused, personally and thoroughly. They
are not impracticable fools, neither do they
thirst for vengeance on the men at whose
hands they have suffered so much. The same
sisiubborness' which causes them to hold
aloof from the Walker party, is what made
them hold aloof from the men who consti-
tute the bulk Of that party, when in whirl
of blind passion, they swept Virginia out OF
the Union. 1t is the same quality which
made many of them risk their lives and their
property by four years of unyieldng opposi-
ton to the Rebel government We are
speaking now, not merely of the colored
, men, who constitute the bulk of the Radical
party in Virginia and the other Southern
= . States, but OF staunch, sterling, patriotic
:, white Union men, who never gave aid or
:, comfort to secession or rebellion, but remain
: ed loyal to the nation through IN ordeal oil
which those who now so glibly accused them
of factious opposition to true Republicanism
e have not even conception.
VI When the Rebellion had failed, and the
: era of reconstruction commenced, these mel
:, :, opposed the restoring of the franchise t.
- rebels who had forfeited it,-just as mel
:. may by criminal disregard of law forfeit an.
- other natural right,-from well grounded
apprehension that those who had hated tn
National government for years and seize
the first opportunity for bloody and DIES
90 perate attempt to disrupt it, would not US
=, the power restored to them in behalf of tn
w. principles which triumphed by their defeat
"a Fom equally earnest convictions of dut
they opposed the movement which con
- menced with the nomination of a boltir
- republican candidate by men who had Ii
~, long record of hostility to the principles
~ that party, and to the National government
80 When these people suddenly became ardel
80 republicans and violently advocated ever.
- thing they had once opposed, the real republ
=, cans very reasonably doubted their sinceri
and put as little faith in them, as we, during ii
:. war, did in those deserters from the reb
ranks TO our own, SO APPLY called by tho u
- repentant "rebs, Galvanized Yankees"
~: They still doubt these Galvanized Repu
- licans, and so do we. We do not belle
"a there is enough of true republicanism :
hearty, earnest loyalty, outside the We
party in Virginia, 10 give Northern repub
a cans a respectful hearing in that State, b
&c Tor the powerful and earnest minority tn
-, condemned as disorganizing faction. I
daa course of the republican papers aud poll
M clans, who thus abuse them, is not mere
M suicidal politically, but it appears like
-, mean desertion of tried friends, and |
blacklist ingratitude.