The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1869-01-15
TIE VIRGINIA COMMITTEE AND THE
RADICAL TRICKsrERs.

The Virginia committee, we suspect, begin
already to realize the vanity of their mission.
What though they may represent the sim
cere and deliberate disposition of the ma
jority of the people of Virginia in asking that
the State be reconstructed and admitted on
the basis of universal suffrage and universal
amnesty? What though they may propose,
on behalf of their white constituency, to con-
cede to the freedmen every right which Hun
nicutt himself has demanded, every attribute
and appurtenance which Greeley, or Phillips,
or Sumner has insisted upon? Do they sup
pose that these facts alone will bring the
Radicals of Congress to acquiesce in their
plan, and to take measures for Fastening the
restoration of the State without any discrimi-
nation between white and black, between
loyalty and disloyalty? Do they imagine that
the faction which has vexed and harassed the
country with three years of Congressional
tinkering with civil and military governments
in the South care rush for negro suffrage, or
negro equality, or even negro supremacy, per
SEP Do they hope that the partisan leaders
who have been SO strenuous to fashion recon.
struction as if for the paramount purpose of
guaranteeing to the freedman the permanence
of his political rights against the opposition
of Rhis white countrymen, will be content,
when they see that this opposition has been
dropped, and that the political rights of the
freedman are not endangered, to withdraw
from usurpatory interference in the affairs of
Virginia, and to remit those affairs to a gov
eminent representing the body of the peo-
pie? If they do, never were frank and liberal
minds more grossly deluded. If they do, they
are strangely, wonderfully, fearfully igno-
rant of the character of the men with
whom they have to deal For what are
these men, as exhibited in the political his
tory of this troublous and opprobrious epoch?
They are the most INSCRIPTIONS and remorse-
less of political tricksters and traders. They
play game which is enough to shock the
conscience of the most hardened of gamblers
at the card table or the faro bank. They are
resolved to hold in their own hands all the
stakes and all the chances. They have han
died the question of Southern reconstruction
from the first, as veteran fisherman handles
ing to let the creature dive and circle for time,
but not the less intent on at length drawing
him, exhausted and helpless, high and dry
upon the land. All their professed overtures
in the interest of speedy restoration on safe
Union basis have been cheats. The only
basis of restoration which will satisfy them is
one that promises to convert the South into a
great Radical plantation for the production of
annual crops of votes and Offices. If the plan
proposed by the Virginia committee will
seem in the eyes of the Radical caucus at
Washington to involve such a result of
course it will be acceptable; and it would
be equally acceptable, given the due as
surance of the same result if it contain
ed no guarantee of the political rights of
the negro. But, if not, of course it will
be rejected. But suppose it to be ac-
cepted, is it conceivable that Virginia
would obtain relief from the present horrors
of Radical policy by process through which
the Radicals hoped to fasten the clutches of
their party upon her more firmly than ever
Depend upon it, gentlemen of Virginia, the
caucus with which you have undertaken to ne
gotiate will grant you nothing without secur-
ing to themselves what they conceive to be
more than equivalent consideration. They
will be as dangerous with their Inequalities,
if they admit you to any, as the Greeks were
with gifts. If you come as foxes, they will
invite you to hely yourself to dinner
out of long necked jar. If you
come as cranes, they will bid you to
partake of broth spread out on a platter.
Any way you may try "pot luck with these
fellows, you viii come out with dreadfuly
short commons. You are without the long
spoon which is proyerbially requisite for sue
cessfully supping at the Satanic board. They
have the spoon, and all the attributes of Sa-
tanic hospitality to boot. They have the hot
poker, also and they hold it by the cold
end and, be assured, they are never going
willingly to give it up, or to cease turning the
hot end of it to you, your people, and your
section.