New-York tribune., 1869-04-17

CLOSING UP THE WORh.

Congress has wisely dcvolved on the Presi-
dent the duty Of providing for elections in
the three States not yet reconstructed; and
we are sure the work will be seasonaby and
ftly attended to- Let the crowd Of Office seek
crs at Washington be allowed few days moro
for final dispersion, and we shall then see
proclamations addressed to the people of Nir-
ginia, Mississippi, and Texas, appointing day
Of election in each, and prescribing the manner
of voting on their pending Constitutions re-
spectiyely. No doubt, it will be rendered prac
ticable in each to vote for Reconstruction and
against Disfranchiscment, so that thousands
will vote to return to self-goyernmcDt and rep
resentation in Congress who would refuse to
do so if they were obliged therein to vote for
the Acknowledgement even of their friends and
neighbors.
We see with regret, though without surprise,
that many of the Northern journals which JUS
tilted and applauded the fatal plunge backward
taken by Georgia last Summer in the expulsion
of tho coored members from her Legislature,
are now trying to fire the Southern heart"
and impel it to vote down the new
Constitutions, thus protracting indefinitely
affect so much to deplore. Because Congress
has prescribed q ratification of the XVIII
Amendment and reserved the right to review
the action of the States about to vote, they
would haye those States reject their respective
Constitutions and thus remand themselves into
Military provinces.
This is precisely of piece with that suicidal
action which did so much to justify dstrust
and severity on the part Of Congress. Repub-
licans cannot be expected to forget that the
Blacks (and even the Ycllows) were expelled
from the Georgia Legislature, after they had
served therein without objection for months
by the votes OF men themselves expressly
disqualified by their own prominent participa-
ton in the Rebellion-men who owed their own
seats to the forbearance Of the very mon they
thus ostracised. Nor can it be so soon forgot
ten that the States of Georgia and Louisiana
were made to vote against Gen. Grant last No
vember by terrorizing q majority of the Blacks
into voting against their own enfranchisement
or not voting at all. In thirty or forty Coun-
ties, containing at least Fifty Thousand
ColOred voters, who had already exer-
cised the Right of Suffrage in unan-
imous aflrmance Of their own right to be
regarded and treated as men and citizens,
hardly dozen votes per County were cast for
Grant and Colfax, and the returns were made
to show prepOnderanco of hundred to one
for Seymour and Blair, when every one knew
that majority of the voters desired the defeat
of those candidates. If Democrats have so
soon forgotten this imOnstrous wrong, per-
petrated through Rebel conspiracy and perse-
cution, they surely cannot expect that Repub-
4 ....I.4 H.
gress had been less exacting and suspicious in
its new terms Of Reconstruction; yet we can
not deny that those terms were abundantly
justified by the action of the Rebel Democracy,
even so lately as 1868.
We hope to hear that every lover Of Peace
at the South now takes This stand firmly and
openly in favor of bringing seach of the out
lying States forthwith back into their old
places in the Union. Hitherto, thousands have
held off because they hoped that the Presiden-
tial Election of 1868 would result in
Democratic pro-Rebel triumph but
that hope is now dead. To stand
out now, in fond expectancy of
different result in 1872, were absurd and
suicidal. Let us have each State back in her
place next Winter, and all prescriptions and
acknowledgements must vanish like the dews
of Summer. Every one will soon vote and
the government of each State, and its represen-
tation in Congress, must very soon be such ms
the will of majority of her people shall
choose to have it. Nothing is to be gained,
while every good result will be impeded, by
voting now to keep three States indefinitely
under pupilage. Reconstruction is tho door
which opens into every possibility of meliora-
ton and improvements ley it not be sallenly