The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-01-28
sR1Rxw OF Tzz PRESS.
Editorial Opinions Of the Leading Journals
Upon Current TOpiss-Compiled Every
Day for the Evening telegraph.
THE VIRGINIA BILL SIGNED-THE PO-
LITICAL SITUATION.

President Grant has signed the Virginia
bill, and the State will of course submit to
the unjust conditions imposed upon her by a
tyrannical and domineering Congress. SINH
lar conditions will be exacted, and the tyranny
be in like manner submitted to, in Georgia.
Mississippi, and Texas; when this infamous
business of reconstruction will be finally
consummated.
But the hour of triumph will be the turn
ing point in the political tide, and the for
tunes of the Republican party will begin to
decline from the moment that the subiuga-
tion of the South seems complete. Vaulting
ambition will find that it has overleaped itself
and fallen on the other side. This device of
universal negro suffrage will return to plague
the inventors.
We are not blind to the seeming security
for their unhallowed work in which the Re-
publican party thinks itself so strongly in
trenched. That party, at present, holds
possession of every branch of the Govern
mont. The Presidency is theirs for three
years from the Sd of next March. Their ma
jority in the Senate is so large that, con-
sidering the long terms of the Senators, it
will take at least four years to destroy it.
When the present vacancies in the Supreme
Court are filed, they will have seven of the
nine judges of that tribunal; and considering
che advanced age of one of the remaining
two, there is perhaps more than an even
chance that they will have eight of the nine
before President Grant goes out of ofhce.
With such advantages on the side of the Re-
publioans, 1t would of course be futile for the
Democratic party to begin new agitation
for the repeal of the reconstruction acts.
Negro suffrage is certain to prevail in the
South until after the next Presidential cleo
fion; and it is quite certain that the Demo
cratic party will not make that an issue in the
next national canvass.
The Southern blacks will all participate in
the next Presidential elections but the Demo-
cratic party in the South will divide the
negro vote and control enough of it to
secure every Southern State for the Demo
cratic candidate. By this means we shall
not only elect the President but revolu-
tionize the Senate even before the terms of
the carpet-bag Senators expire. The South
ern Senators, if they wish to continue in
political life, cannot afford to be in opposi-
tion to the preponderating public senti-
ment of their own States. Even. the malig-
nant Brownlow is falling under the suspicion
of the radicals since the conservative triumph
in Tennessee In all the reconstructed States.
the first elections which take place after their
admission will bring the Democratic party
into power, and the Legislatures will steadily
instruct their Senators in Congress to vote
for the favorite measures of the South.
In future elections, the Republicans will
have lost the advantages which enabled them
to carry SO many Southern States in the first
organization of their new governments. The
Freedmen's Bureau, by which the negroes
were fed, clothed, and protected, was a vast
electioneering engine which enabled the Re-
publican party to conduct its canvass in those
States at the expense of the Federal Govern
ment. They will find it no easy matter to
raise several millions year for election ex-
penses in the South out of their own private
pockets. Moreover, the Southern elections
have been conducted under military supervi-
sion, and carried by military terror and coer-
cion. The registration of voters was made by
military authority; appointees of the military
officers superintended the polls, counted the
votes, made the returns, and the command
ing genrral has certified and declared the re-
suit Hereafter the Republican party will
have no such advantages They can neither
lure the negroes by rations and fattery nor
overbear and silence the whites by menace
and military violence. The Republicans will
never carry another election in the South
after all the States are readmitted.
The Southern Democrats will possess great
advantages for influencing and controlling
the negroes. The prolonged perfidy tyranny,
and malignity of Congress have made the
respectablewhite population of theSouth unan-
imous in their detestation of the Republican
party, 80 that the whole weight of white in
huence will be cast into one scale. If there
were two considerable parties among tn Q
Southern whites, the anti radical pressure
upon the negro mind would not be so uni
form, constant, and effective as it is likely to
prove when all the wealth, intelligence,
respectability, and political skill of the
Southern communities contribute to sur
round the negroes with Democratic atmo
nrNhn go he LII
wages, and the whites will exert all
the influence of intelligent employers over
Ignorant employees When the negroes get
into difficulty and need loans, they will bor-
row of the whites, who will exert all the inhu-
ence of debtors over creditors. The negroes
are, after their rude fashion, a very religious
and emotional race; and liberal contributions
by the whites for the support of their
preachers and churches, will win their hearts
and lay them under obligations of which they
will not be unmindful in the elections. The
negroes are fond of excitement, and great
lovers of good cheer, and nothing will be
easier than for the Southern politi-
clans to practise upon this weak
side of their character. If the elections
are made festive enough; if they are gay with
professions, banners, and musio if great bar
bacues are held, at which fat oxen are roasted
whole and liquors poured out in profusion,
and prominent parts are assigned to the
negroes in conducting such jovialities, there
will be little difficulty in controlling negro
votes. Nearly all the property in the South
is in the hands of Democrats, and it is only
the Democratic party that can make great
and captivating display in this kind of cleo
tioneering festivities. To suppose that they
will not have a powerful effect in Southern
politics, would evince great ignorance of the
negro character.
THE NEWT DID cTDuNJUT AT ID Anrr II