The Wheeling daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1864-1878, 1870-02-23
The Hubbard Substitute.

The Senate yesterday ueleaIeu, III tne
most inglorious manner, the HUBBARD
substitute for the BOWER registration
bill, offered in the House by Mr.. WELLS.
We thus designate it in order that our
readers may not mistake the mover for
the author.
When this bill passed the House there
was a vigorous sounding of trumpets all
around over the splendid Republican
victory gained by its passage. Will
some dispassionate observer, or rather
some elatod and delighted liberal Re
publican" who undertook to keep his
pledges by voting with the "bitter
enders," have the kindness to explain
whether the indefinite Postponement OF
the bill by the Senate yester-
day il to be considered a Repub-
licau delc4t' Certainly it would seem
that if the action of the House was a
victory for the Republicans, the action
of the Senate is revere for them.
And yet as Republican votes in the
Senate effected this indefinite postpone
ment, the road is not clear TO the latter
conclusion.
What was the measure which the
Senate disposed of so summarilyf IL wa
u bill far short Of the demands OF the
case, but it recognized the principle OF
elccting registrars by tn. people, ard OF
representing both parties upon the
Boards. Let it be understood that the
Republican party of the State refuses to
acknowledge the justice of these two
principles, and that it proposes to con-
tinue the registration law in its present
prcscliptive shape. There is to be no
limitation of its powers, no remedy for
its outrages, and no responsibility for its
officers. The leading, the vital Issue OF
the last campaign, the issue which con-
tributed more than any other to the
great revolution in popular sentiment
which then took place, is thus stunned
and the will of the people deiod. OF
one thing we are certain. If the he
publican party goes before the people
of the State, maintaining and defending
the same odious policy it has pursued to
this time, it goes to defeat. No regis
tration law ever invented can work out
partisan success which is as strongly con-
demned by pHblic opinion as the law at
present in force.
The organization of the "bitter end
ers" in the Senate seems to have been
very thorough. They not only muster.
ed in all who have heretofore been
recognized as proscriptive, but they
secured the votes of several whose pro-
fessions have had very liberal bear
ing. OF them hereafter. The majority
doubtless understand the responsibility
resting upon them of clearing up their
record on this question, and for the
present we leave them to consider 1t.
The four Republicans, Messrs. HARMAN,
DAYTON, PHELPS and YOUNG, who voted
against indefinite rostponement, took a
position which the Republicans party
could have handsomely defended in the
coming campaign. That their course,
as against that of the thirteen Republi-
cans who voted to perpetuats proscrip-
tiOn will be generally approved, there
cannot be the slightest doubt. And
now since it is clear that the negro will
vote at the next election, where will
those appear whe have voted to deny
the white man the legal protection nec-
essary to secure him in his right to vote