The Sweetwater enterprise. (Sweetwater, Tenn.) 1869-187?, 1869-12-16
Tennessee in Washington.

The Washington telegraphic CORES
pondent of the New York Tribune gives
us an intimation of what we may expect
from Congress relative to our local affairs.
The voters of the State having by an over
whelming majority rejected Radicalism,
the effort is to be made in Congress to
have the State government "run" by fed
eral authority. This correspondent un.
der the date of Dec. 3, says:
"The Tennessee Republicans are to be
represented here, during the coming ses-
sion of Congress, by several prominent
gentlemen from Nashville and other places
in the State, who have been selected to
present to the public men here the condi-
ton of affairs in their State. The Ten
nessee members are a unit in the denunci-
alton of the conduct of the Tennessee Leg
i%slature, and the policy by which they OBJ
tanned power"
The following further extract from the
same correspondent, will show the charac-
ter of the representations which are being
made in Washington by the distinguished
Tennessee Republicans now there:
SIT is stated that they are systematical-
ly, though cautiously, repeating the laws
by which equal rights to all the citizens
of the State have beon guaranteed. Re-
Gently an attempt was made to repeal the
law protecting the colored citizens in their
right to sit on juries or hold office thirty
one votes out of seventy-two were obtain
ed for the repeal, but the law is praoti-
cally a dead letter. The Legislature has
just re-enaCted the old vagrant law in an
offensive shape, providing that laboring
persons, who have moi contracted by the
first of January for the ensuing year, shall
be hired or sold for that period to the
highest bidder. By another law the ten
ant of land is not allowed to remove or
sell the crop until the landlord has been
paid. The object is to keep colored far
mers under the landowners heel. law
inhicting penalties on common carriers has
been repealed, which protected the colored
person in travelling; hereafter he can be
charged hrSt-class fare, and put into any
sort Of car, and no remedy exists. An
other law forbids voters from casting their
ballots elsewhere than in the district where
they live. Heretofore the colored man
could 90 to the county town, where he vo-
ted with others of his class, and stood a
chance of protection now he must vote
under the eye of his employer, or run the
risk of being driven off ii he was to vote
contrary to his wishes. The representa-
tive Republicans assert that every law now
on the statute-books of their State sustain
ing equal rights before the law will be re-
pealed or nulli6ed. Leading papers adj
yocating the election of delegates to the
proposed Constitutional Convention who
are opposed to negro suffrage, free schools,
and other rights o in possession of the
people. They assert that more than one
half of the present Legislature are disqual-
flied by the fourteenth amendment and the
State constitution. According to the
statements of those who hold this view,
the principal Northern men who have been
active in Tennessee are leaving as rapidly
as possible, and the condition of public
sentiments and affairs generally grow worse
daily. 1t is the intention to secure pro-
lection from Congress, and already a bill
to meet the case in view has been pre-
pared, and will be presented in both
Houses at an early day, 10 ,i'Irg s6