New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1869-08-14
RECENT SOUTHERN ELECTIONS.

The Senter Republicans of Tennessee are
not so jolly as they had hoped to be. Their
Conservative allies proved not only more
ruinous but more exacting than they had an
ticipated. Though there was no outright bar
gain, it was clearly understood by those Re-
publicans that Acknowledgement was all that
the Conservatives were to ask or claim at
this election that, this being secured, they
would vote not only for Senter but for
especial friends for the Legislature. At the
last moment, however, Conservative" caDdi'
dates for the Legislature were nOminated-Or
voted for without having been openly nomi-
nated-and most of them easily elected over
the divided and conflicting Republicans. The
Senter Republicans have therefore carried Sen
ter; the Conservatives" have clutched nearly
everything else. And there is, naturally, some
hard feeling on the subject.
Gen. Grant had 56,757 votes in the State last
Fall; and these would have been about equally
divided on Governors but the later develop
ments of Conservative avidity probably
changed some thousands of these from Senter
to Stokes, who thus received some 10000 to
10000 votes. Senters vote will probably reach
100000, made up nearly as follows:
Seymour voters last year $500
Newly enfranchised. $4,000
The CONSERVATIVES" have won a triumph
too sweeping to be secure. Already, some of
the old Rebel oracles begin to talk of "a
white Mans Government" and an open ALI
ance on that platform with the Northern
Democracy. They will doubtless so manage as
to unite and invigorate the Republicans at an
early day; but this they think they can afford.
By our estimate, they are $4,000 strong; while
the Republicans are but 10000. The former
are not likely to ignore this disparity.
"There you see the effect of Rebel enfran-
" chisementw says Stokes man.
Certainly 1t would doubtless have been
wiser in the Republicans to enfranchise the
Rebels by generous act of amnesty than to
let them enfranchise themselves, as, by Senters
help, they have just done. There is always a
right way to do whatever needs doing; and
taking another way, or letting it be taken,
involves trouble.
But the champions Of wholesale, indefinite
prescription persistently shut their eyes to con-
trolling facts. They talk as though pyramid
would stand on its apex forever; but it wo MT.
Had Seymour been elected last Fall, the i" Con-
"servatives" would have enfranchised them
selves by the shortest way, law or no law.
There would probably have been collision, and
a season of anarchy-pOssibly of bloodshed-
but they would have been voters in the end.
They have now attained that end in better
way, though not the best. The last Legislature
should have enfranchised at least the better
half of them.
Virginia seems quietly awaiting Gen.
Canbys official declaration of tie result of her
late struggle. IL there are complaints that any
have been prescribed, or elected from their
tenements or turned off by their employers
for voting as they chose last month, we do not
hear them. But we do hear that Gen. Candy
persists in his purpose of exactng the ron-clad
oath of every member of the new Legislature.
and deeply regret it. We see no end to be
achieved by it but that of converting the
triumphant Walker party into an anti Admin
istratiOn party and embittering the political
feuds of Virginia for years to come. If the
effect be to deprive the majority of U. S.
Senators and enable tho minority to elect
them, the wrong win be greater and the
blunder more fatal We must cherish the
hope that Gen. Candy will yet be induced
Sto accept the situation" as fully, if not so
heartily, as the late Rebels appear to have
done.
Alabama alone has just witnessed straight
forward party contest and there the Repub-
lcans have triumphed, choosing four of the
six Representatives in Congress. One of the