The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1869-09-23
Senator sumner ON the Political Issues Of
the Day-The Prospect.

Senator Summers carefully considered speech
| delivered before the Massachusetts, Republican
State Convention yesterday we submit to our
readers in full this morning We do so because
|'this speech, we think, may be considered not
only as the voice of the republican party of
Massachusetts,, but as the programme of this par
ty for 1869 throughout the country, and because,
since his great exhaustive and unanswerable
speech in the Senate on the Alabama claims,
the opinions and pleadings of Mr.. Sumner on
public affairs attract larger degree of public
attention than ever before.
In the speech before us we have the views
Of the Senator on the negro question, in con-
nection with Southern reconstruction and the
fifteenth amendment; on the money question,
in connection with the redemption and repudi-
atom on the Alabama claims, in connection
with Canadian annexation, and on the Cuban
question, touching the policy of Spain and the
policy of the United States The burden of
the speech, however, is upon ''the national
freedman and the national creditor" or the
negro and the national debt The Senator
takes gloomy view of the present condition
of things in the South; the mischief resulting
from Andrew Johnsons detection Is not yet
over; the faithful Southern Unionists are
suffering terribly under the growing reaction;
there is no peace in the ex-rebel States;
there we still tread on smothered fires; our
information from all that section is most pain
full; old rebels are crawling forth from their
hiding places; the lawless Ku-Klux clan still
maintain their reign of terror, and ''there is
only one thing that these disturbers can feel
power, and they must be made to feel 1.-THE
power of an awakened people, directed by
republican administration
From all this we may calculate upon terri
BILE overhauling of the recent Southern cleo
tons after the reassembling of Congress; for
the hint is broadly suggested, not only to the
South but to the administration ITSELF in Sum-
ner's declaration that we must, In the matter
of equal rights, have security for the future
before we can admit the late Southern rebels
into copartnership in the government. We
are pointedly told that the battle on the negro
is not yet finished between the republicans on
the one side and the ex-rebels Of the South and
their allies of the Northern democracy on the
other. We fear, indeed, that in Summers
estimation Greeley has been too fast In his
recognition Of the Walker liberal republican
party of Virginia.
In considering the democratic party upon
''that standing menace of reputation, by
which the national credit at home and abroad
suffers so much" Mr.. Sumner enlarges upon
the different branches of the money question
He says that reputation is coniscation; that
the propositions to redeem the debt in green
backs and to tax the national bonds mean
| reputation; that the extra interest we have
| to pay on the debt results from these schemes
| of reputation; but still he contends that in
view of the overwhelming disasters of repu-
diation this thing is impossible. All this Is
plain sailing under the wing of General Grant
| but we are not very sanguine of speedy
return to specie payments, through the mere
conversion of greenbacks into national bank
notes.
On the Cuban question the cautious Senator
thinks that Spain ought to and will have to
relinquish the island but that as yet the
Cubans do not present a case for the conces-
sion of belligerent rights. Worst of all, the
administration Of Cespedes, according to the
| Senator, remains in doubt upon the question of
the abolition of slavery. But what, we may
ask, does this signify, in view of the annexa-
ton of Cuba? for the moment the island is
| ours slavery therein ceases to be. We appre-
| bend that Massachusetts would rather have
| the tariff and the custom house receipts on
| Cuban tobacco, sugar and coffee than the
| island free Of cost. At all events MIR. Sum-
ner appears to'be perfectly Indifferent as to
the settlement of the Cuban question.
Not SO is he in reference to the Alabama
claims. He adheres to his speech in the
Senate; but he leaves it to England to deter.
mine what reparaton to offer, and to the
American people to determine what repara.
ton TO require. He pronounces the projec,
of taking Canada for indemnity as imprac-
ticable, but is satisfied that the laws Of
gravtation will bring about annexation
In short Mr.. Sumner proposes to fight thi
State campaign in Massachusetts, on th,
almighty niger" and the national debt In
all its bearings, leaving Cuba, the Alabama
claims, Canada and Mexico to take the
chances in the drift Of events. We see, too
that in Ohio Pennsylvania and New York, al
in Massachusetts,, the republicans will pusl
their fight on the negro and the debt, upor
which they are in full accord with the admin
istration; that they will leave Cuba and tn,
Alabama claims to take their chances, and al
far as possible will avoid, as in Maine, all divi
sions and all entangling alliances on whiskey
and lager beer. Let the reader turn from thii
programme to that of the democracy at SYRIA
cuse and draw his own conclusions. w,
think that, backed at lest by the administration