Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1869-09-08

the ballot from the negroes to whom it has
already been given. The Democrats during
the canvass, however, professed to favor suf-
frage for the blacks, and promised not to
take it away from them. That some Demo
Gratis in Tennessee intend to stand by this
promise, and recognize negro suffrage as an
established fact, not to be changed or re-
vcrsed, is evident from the following extract
from the Nashville Banner, an old Demo
cratic organ:
1.-THE work of disintegration is rapidly
going on among the old politicians. The
issues that divided she country in the presi-
Dental election of last year are practically
settled. Negro suffrage is a fixed. inevitable
fact. reconstruction according to the Con
gressional demands, is unavoidable. Viz
ginia was the first to ignore old party issues
and nomenclatures. Tennessee followed,
and it will be seen that Mississippi, our
sister state, has adopted the same wise policy.
But =" Oh" says some old party hacx, " are
you going to sink the hallowed name of Dem
ocracy, and abandon a party that has stood
by the constitution so long?" We say, yes,
if the public good requires it, sink the name
and the party 30 deep that the hand OF the
resurrection will never reach it. We know
that Democrats ardently desire to preserve
the constitution and our institutions as they
received them from their fathers. But they
are powerless for good. The policy they
have opposed has ~triumphed, and let us meet
the new, living vital issues that concern the
South, not as partisans, but as patriots
anxious to strike hands with anybody that
can do the greatest good to a people who are
so much in need of good deeds. When a
party confessedly becomes a failure. so far
as the accomplishment of results, then its or
ganization is a cheat and a delusion and
prOtiting by the lessons which history teach
es, we should abandon it. TIL Democratic
party is now nothing but the shell from
which the oyster was taken.
How large a proportion of the Democracy
of Tennessee the Banner represents we do
not know, but it may be large enough, after
all, to secure impartial suffrage and if that
is secured, the triumph of Senter will be de-
priyed of the greater half of its power of mis-
chief. In the first flush of the triumph, the
victors are of course sanguine of accomplish
ing a great deal, and thisi is the secret of the
talk of many of undoing all that has been
done under the rule of Republicanism in the
state but if wiser and more temperate
c~ounsels do not prevail when the time comes
for action, it is more than probable that what
the Banner calls the work of disintegra-
ton will go on rapidly, and the parties of
the future in the state will divide upon liv-
ing rather than dead issues.
We have no expectation, however, that
Tennessee will now ratify the proposed
Fifteenth Amendment, as the Democracy
everywhere, upon one pretence or another,
are hostile to that. 1t will be ratified, how
ever, in the states not yet fully reconstruct
ed, as such action is made a prerequisite to
their recognition by Congress as entitled to
representation, and in this way, we hope, it
will ultimately become a part of the organic
law and with equal suffrage thus secured,
we hal be quite willing to trust Republi-
canism to fight its own battles among the
strifes of the parties of the future.