The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1869-12-16

aWare ClaG LIle IuGe vi tndG auieho'HSno 40
yet doubtful. Ten adverse States suffice
to defeat it; and seven-(New Jersey,
Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Tennes'
see, California and Oregon)-are already
beyond hope. The loss of Tennessee was
at once calamity and blunder-one of
those intense stupidities which great
party is seldom allowed to repeat. How
Rhode Island, Indiana, Georgia and Ne
braska stand, l need not inform you.
Suffice it that it will require the wisest
counsels and the best efforts to avert the
threatened failure of that great and wise
measure of safety, benignity and peace.
The men now coming to Congress to de-
mand that Tennessee be upset, and Vir-
ginia remanded, and Mississippi and Tex
as held as satrapies for an indefinite peri
cd, unless they vote as they are hidden,
utterly fail to comprehend the situation.
They evidently suppose that zoe have 10th
ing at stake-that we may keep three or
four States unreconstructed and unrepre-
scented in Congress during pleasure. l
hope you know better-at all events, l do.
We do not merely need the XVIII Amend
ment ratified before 1s72-we urgently
need it now. If it be delayed one year
longer, We shall have more than one State
Legislature beside that of New York as
suniing to withdraw the ratification al
ready accorded aud, while you and | may
rightly deny the legal validity of such
withdrawal, I am sure neither Of us will
dispute its moral weight. Connecticut is
to hold an election next April, when the
votes of her colored citizens will be found
exceedingly useful if not absolutely need
ed; New Jersey and Pennsylvania have
U. s. Senators depending on the result of
their next State election respectively, and
the like votes are absolutely needed in the
former, and probably SO in the latter.
Several seats in the next Congress from
Ohio and other States will be won or lost
Us the right to vote for members shall be
exercised by their whole people or only by
the whites Kentucky, Maryland and
Delaware, will each be stdutly and hope.
fully contested next year if the Amend.
ment be meantime ratified, while re shall
not elect one member from all three Of
these States if it be not. To my appre-
hension, the control of the next House of
Representatives will probably hinge on
that event.
ask you, then, to consider, as practi-
cal man, whether we can afford to pick
and choose from among those disposed to
favor that Amendment-wh it will
not be suicidal folly to repel any pi'ofered
or possible support. | ask you whether
any attempt to pry into the motives of
those who may favor ito ascertain
whether they were not rebels, and, if so,
whether they have repented of having
been such-is not a childish exhibition Of
that spirit which "goeth before fall"
In short, ask you to consider this whole
matter in the light of naked, hearty,
homely common sense, and act upon it as
the demands of the exigency shall seem
to require.
The urgency of the case must excuse the
freedom of this appeal. Rightly or wrong
ly, the country regards you as the leader
IN Congress of those who have been most
exacting in their requirements of the de-
feated rebels, and least inclined to. treat
them with confidence or generosity. The
reproaches which I have Incurred in this
quarter will never attach TO you, and your
adhesion to the policy which the occasion
demands will never be attributed to weak
ness or sentimentality. / ask you, there
fore, to place yourselfpromptly and heart
ily at the head of movement looking to
the instant and complete removal of all
political disabilities whatever from any and
every one who favors or shall favor the
XVIII Amendment, and their prompt res
toration to all the privileges of fcltizenship.
"Let US have peace!'
Yours, HORACE GREELEY.
New York, Nov. Goth, 1860.
n---.. M,,. H.,