The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-06-22
SPIRIT OF THE PRESS.
EDITORIAL OPINIONS OF THR LEADING JOURNALS
UPON CURRENT ToPIos-coNIPuED EVERY
DAY FOR THE EVENING TELEGRAPH.
TERMINATING REBEL DISFRANCHISE
MENT
u,om tbs NJ Y. Times.


From the NJ Y. Times.
The question of putting an end to the
present suffrage disabilities of those connected
with the Rebellion is engaging attention more
and more throughout the country IN some
of the leading Southern States, like virginia
and Tennessee. it has become one OF the prln-
cipal political issues. Influential Southern
ers of the most diverse party connections and
personal antecedents, from General Robert
Il lee TO Parson Brownlow, are taking the
ground that the time has come when there
should no longer be prescribed class before
the ballot-box. The growing prevalence of
The same spirit in the Northern political coun-
sells is manifest to every observer.
The fact is that the first intense, impulsive,
indiscriminating heat against the rebellion
and all concerned init has given place, with
the lapse of time, to cooler, calmer thinking.
The treatment of the conquered Rebels is
now weighed with more regard to the true
interests of the whole country. Opinions
upon it are shaped less by private feeling and
more by considerations of sound public policy.
Among the Union men of the South-even
the radical portion of them-there is per-
ception of a bad anomaly in state of things
under which the highest prerogative of citi-
zenship is denied to thousands of the most
wealthy intelligent, and virtuous; while it is
freely exercised by tens of thousands who
have lived all their lives until very lately in
the most debasing slavery and benighted
Ignorance.
The radicals of the North, too, are growing
more sensible of this incongruity. 1t is hard
for them to keep up their old cry of 'man-
hood suffrage" and make the application stop
short of the white race. If their principle is
worth anything at all, its validity is absolute,
and its application must be universal. 1t has
come to this-as every thinking man foreknew
from the outset-that the radicals cannot
nourish their resentments againstthe Southern
white man, except at the expense Of the ''im-
partial, equal right platform, the abstract
Justice of which was all that ever gave them
any standing place in the politics Of the coJln-
Try. Thus it is that the very class of Northern
politicians who have been most implacable
toward the South are preparing to yield some
thing, from the sheer necessity of keeping
Square and clear position before the people.
Withal, there is something in this perma-
nent prescription that is calculated to make it
unpopular, without any reference to party
divisions. 1t is essentially un-American-
opposed to the whole spirit of our institu-
tions, and to the fundamental principles of
our Government. There is not a monarchi-
cal rule in Europe which has not its long
list of prOScrits-men who have been out
lawed all their lives for some kind of insub-
ordination This persecution is in perfect
harmony with a system which lives and has
its being only in brute force, and knows no
such thing as an inherent personal right.
But we live in republic which processes to
be sustained purely by the consent of the
governed, and which declares certain natu-
raj rights 'inalienable." That cannot be
called a government of the people from the
privileges of which considerable fraction of
the people, for any cause, are excluded. To
impose taxation and all the other burdens of
Government upon any person, while depriv-
ing him of representation and all the benefits
of 10 he
mind, from the beginning, the very essence
of tyranny. The very love for constitutional
law which impelled the great majority to fight
the Rebellion with such good heart makes it
all the harder to follow up the conquered Re-
bellion with pains and penalties so alien to the
Constitution.
1t may be allowed that disfranchisement,
with its attendant 'iron-clad oath, for a time
served some good purpose. But that is really
no argument for their continuance. There is
no reason in persistently keeping up an eX-
treme medicine in advanced convalescence,
simply because it did some good at more
dangerous stage of the disease. Everybody
knows that the time must come when the ex-
treme resort must be discontinued, OF the
patient be the worse for it. For while, after
the overthrow of the Rebellion, the Southern
temper was so hot and vindictive with disap-
pointment that it was easily moved to evil by
its old leaders, andreconstructionw was thereby
greatly hindered, until it became palpable
that these leaders must somehow be hampered
and disabled, or disorder rage indefinitely.
Therefore these temporary disabilities were
temporarily imposed and with good
effect. The irritation of the
masses, left without this stimulus,
presently gave way to sober thought,
and it gradually became clear to the whole
Southern mind that it was best to forget the
past, and be on good terms once more with
the old Government. This feeling grew un-
til the Rebellion was no longer spoken of or
thought of by any class, except as ''the lost
cause. And to-day scarcely trace of the
old rebellious spirit ventures to show itself
anywhere. Practically, the South is now Just
as clear as the North of any purpose to organ
ize resistance against Federal authority The
suspension of babedS corpus, which the North
ern people were made to feel during the war,
would be scarcely more out of time, if revived
now, than are these civil disabilities, still
visited upon the South. The Rebellion has
forever passed, and with it should pass for
ever away from both parts of the country the
last glimmering of its cruel necessities.
If there was any significance in the last
Presidential election, it was lust this which
the people of both sections pronounced for.
in uniting as they so generally did upon
General Grant, with his watchword, Let us
have Peace. The peace that was then voted
was no hollow pretext or sham affair 1t was
honest, heartfelt peace springing from a
i interest-a peace sought and found in its
natural course, laid in liberal forgiving senti-
ments, and in principles purely pacific, as fan
..,A L