The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-07-27


to ratify the fifteenth amendment. They have
proved their strength in the election already
held, when they voted down the Constitution
and gave their candidates a large majority
despite the heavy preponderance of colored
voters. Negro suffrage has no terrors for
them; and they are prepared to prove that
their rule will have no terrors for the Blacks
and should have none.
In Texas there are no DISTINGUISHING and
proscriptive clauses to be voted down. and of
course no separate submission. The ''con-
servatves' will vote to ratify the Constitu-
ton, support General A. j. Hamilton for
Governor, and say he will be elected by an
immense majority, and the fifteenth amend
ment ratified without serious opposition.
In this State there is very formidable
body of outlaws who would, like TO pass for
Rebels, but are really horse thieves and rob
bers generally, though they sometimes try to
give their crimes a semi-political aspect by
outrages upon conspicuous Unionists, and es-
pecially upon isolated and defenseless negroes.
The military have done their best to repress
these Villains but there is hardly a soldier in
the State to every hundred square miles,
while the vast unpeopled forests and prairies
afford refuge and concealment to the outlaws.
Texas needs a government which has not only
the sympathy but the active support of her
people, in order that she may deal stringently
with these villains, and either suppress or
eXpel them. The work is already well begun:
but there are still extensive districts in which
life and property will not be secure until she
is fully reconstructed.
In Georgia the conservatives have on their
hands a large elephant of their own raising.
By expelling from the Legislature its coored
members, when they thought Seymour and
Blair were to be elected, they put themselves
wholly in the wrong. They forced a majority
for Seymour when at least ten thousand more
voters preferred Grant. Since they heard of
Grants election they have been trying to get
out of their false position; but this is not half
SO easy as keeping out would have been. Yet
the recent decision of their Supreme Court
that blacks were eligible to Office has given
them an excuse, and an opportunity alone is
still wanting They are ready to restore to
the colored members the seats wherefrom
they were most wrongfully elected, and to
ratify the fifteenth amendment. Could they
be assured tomorrow that they might thus
regain the ground they most unwisey and
perversely abandoned, they would promptly
do so. eve speak of the vast majority; there
is in Georgia, as elsewhere, an incorrigible
few; but their sceptre has departed)
Virginia virtually says to Congress and the
country: "You prescribed to us conditions of
restoration: we have fulfilled them so far as
we have been accorded opportunity: let us
convene our Legislature and inaugurate our
State officers, and we will complete all that
you required. We have adopted a Radical
Constitution by nearly 200, 600 majority, re-
| jecting only those sections which prescribed
and disfranchised many thousands of ourfore-
| most citizens. as the President enabled and
authorized us to do. We are ready to ratify
| the fifteenth amendment, and to fulfil every
duty of loyal citizens of a Union State Will
| you admit us to self-government, and to a
voice in the National Councils ?"
She is met by requision from General
Candy that her newly chosen legislators shall
take the iron-clad oath Chat they never gay e
any aid or countenance to the Rebellion)
which many of them cannot do, and which
the members of no Legislature of recon-
structed State have yet been required to do
General Grant instructed General Meade not
to require it in Georgia or Alabama, and he
did not; General Candy was urged by Gov
ernor Holden to require it in North Carolina,
but would not We will not review the rea-
soning by which General Candy justifes this
requirement in the case of Virginia; but we
assert with entire confidence that none of his
superiors-President Grant, Secretary Raw
Inns, and General Sherman directed or
counselled it.
Just consider for one moment the intrinsic
absurdity of the requirement. The Virginia
conservatives say to the President, ''We want
to vote for the constitution, and thus to return
to our places in the Union; but there are
certain clauses thereof which disfranchise and
prescribe part of ourselves these we want
to vote against, and vote down if we can. -
The President looks into the matter, and says,
''This is reasonable and right; it shall be as
you ask" They proceed to vote, and vote
down prescription and disfranchisement by
some fifty thousand majority, thus establish
ing upon the highest authority the equal
rights before the law of all citizens; and yet,
in the face of this verdict, some thirty or forty
members of the new Legislature are to be ex-
cluded from their seats
Most certainly, the partisan aspect of this
matter is quite subordinate; but Just look for
one moment at this: We want Virginia's rat
ifcation of the fifteenth northumberland it
now-want the moral influence of such ratif-
cation by the assent of all parties. Exclude
all the prominent conservatives from her
Legislature, and that ratification will be shOrn
OF all power and significance 30 yes says
a caviller Virginia has ratified; but how ?
What sort of Virginia is it.? Let us exclude
from a Legislature all whom we will, and we
can make it do anything we choose" Is
there not force in that criticism?
We ought to have had all the OUTLYING
States brought into the Union this summer
ought to have welcomed and helped them tC
come thought to have put through the fif
teenth amendment by their aid. and had i
officially proclaimed a part of the Constitu
ton, so that the blacks could have voted il
every State next fall. That would have eivel
us five or ten thousand votes in each of tn
g great States, where we are quite likely t
need them. Better than this; it woul
have taken the question of negro suffrag
: out of politics, and enabled us to fl
Il