The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1869-04-15
VIRGINIA ArrAlRs-fHE RECONSTRUCT

v1serstA ArrAIas-THE REcoNsTKuc-
-,oS BILL AND TESTIMONY BEFORE THE
nyy1TrEE-GovERNoRW ELLs's CLAIM AND
srRyrcks-WnAT HE ASKED FOR LAST SUM
nER. Washington, April l5.-1n view
pf the approaching campaign and contest
In Virginia, applications here are hume
rons for the testimony taken before the
Committee on Reconstruction on the sub
;ect Of Virginia affairs but these docu-
ments seem very hard to get, and it is now
difficult to ascertain whether they were or
aered to be printed. 1t seems that at the
recent meeting Of the committee resolu-
ton was adopted directing General Butler,
the chairman, to report resolution for the
nrintipg Of the testimony, So. General
Butler alone opposed the printing and it is
now believed that he virtually disobey ed
the instructions Of the committee by failing
10 report the resolution. The other mem
hers Of the committee are very much in
censed and highly indignant with this
action. The testimony was not Of charac-
ter 10 please the Radicals, and its effect, it
Is believed, would be disastrous to the pros
pect Of Governor Wells.
tirginisns here, and others who are
familiar With the course Of reconstruction,
are somewhat amused at the assumption of
Governor Wells, in his late speech in Rich
mond, that he had much to do with passing
the late bill for the reconstruction Of Vir-
ginis. Mr.. Beck, Of Kentucky, a member
Of the Reconstruction Committee, in q
speech delivered in the House Of Repre-
sentatiyes in July, 1863, disposed Of Mr..
Wells's claim to having engineered this
bill through Congress as follows
1.-THE present provisional Governor Of
Virgins Governor Wells) came before the
Reconstruction Committee, and when called
upon by our chairman to state what he
wanted he said, almost in the very words
which | now repeat, land the committee
will sustain me in the statement,) that in
the first place he wanted liberal appcopria-
tons to carry on the election. That we
have given them; we have appropriated
$4,000. He wanted no further registra-
ton, because, as he said, there were to-day
twenty FIVE thousand white men in the State
of Virginia who, under the present re-
construction laws, are entitled to be regis
tered and vote, and if registered they would
carry the State against the Republican
luTly. no W uIoiA dbSuisO So3VOV
white voters in that State. He further said
that if they were permitted to adhere to the
registration which took place last year,
when a great many white men refused to
register, that they would carry the State, as
they could, if an early day was fixed, get
the negro vote solid, and get enough white
votes to give them majority for the con-
stitution and the Radical candidates. The
Reconstruction Committee treated the infa-
nous proposition with the scorn and con-
tempt it deserved. There was not mem
Der Of the committee who did not refuse to
adopt that proposition"
This was Wells's view on the subject last
summer, and that he has not changed in any
particular, as would be shown if the testi-
nony taken by the Reconstruction Commit
tee had been sent to the printer as ordered.
The Virginia Radicals-all who act with
Wells-desired its suppression, and in obe-
dience to that desire it has not been pub
lished. The failure to get this testimony
will deprive the Conservative party in Vir-
GINA Of one Of its most effective weapons
in the campaign, for it would show that the
committee Of nine, and not the Wells party,
was successful before Congress and with the
PresideDt.-U., in Baltimore Sun.