The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1871-08-09

South.
The results, as far as reported, of the late
elections in North Carolina and Kentucky
Indicate In the one State q republican victory
OF considerable importance, and in the othes
republican gains Of much significance in ref
erence to our approaching Presidential CAM
paign The great question involved in this
North Carolina election was the control Of the
official machinery for the elections of 1872.
Had the democrats been sue ,essful, as they
expected to be, from their success in the cleo
tons for their late Legislature-had their hopes
been realized on the issue of a convention to
revise the State constitution and in the cleo
ton of majority of the delegates thereto,
| they would have so amended their supreme
| State law forthwith as to remove the repub-
licans who now hold many of the most impor-
tant executive and judicial Offices and would
have filled their places with jealous demo-
Gratis; and they would otherwise have provided
the ways and means for securing to their
party the complete supervision OF their State
elections henceforward. Upon the plea, how
ever, that the existing State constitution binds
all concerned against disturbing it for ten
years from its adoption in 1868, and that,
therefore, this late movement for its revision
meantime was illegal and void, the repub-
licans, as it appears, have secured decisive
majority of the popular vote against the pro-
posed convention.
Accepting these reports as true, we think
the State of North Carolina, which was lost
last year apparently beyond redemption by
the republicans, has been recovered by them
this year on an issue bearing directly upon
the Presidential question and upon General
result, therefore, may be accepted as positive
evidence of General Grants popularity in
North Carolina. The republicans there are
united in support of his administration they
have looked and still look to him to help them
in any desperate extremity with the Ku Klux
Klans and such like alleged dsturbers of the
black voters, who almost unanimously 60 with
the republicans, Notwithstanding the rascalities
Of the carpet-baggers. This election shows,
too, that the Ku Klux bill, which General
Grant has wisely held in reserve against law
less men as a measure to be enforced only
when all milder means have failed, has ope-
rated In North Carolina in favor of law and
order. We hear of no scenes of violence or
terrorism connected with this late election,
and so we may infer that the power given to
the President by the Ku Klux bill, although
despotic power, has had good effect upon the
lawless political elements not only of North
Carolina, but of all the Southern States, and
that political terrorism in that section has
ceased to exist.
We are supported in this conclusion by the
prevailing peaceful character of the Kentucky
election From the returns at hand ii is ap-
parent that the black republicans turned out
more generally than in any election since they
were elevated to the dignity Of voters, and it
appears, too, that, with few reported excep-
tons, they were freely admitted to the polls.
Whatever, then, may be the cause or causes,
we have the fact before us in the evidence
| Kentucky that negro suffrage is at last prac-
| tically accepted by the whites of the South of
| all parties. But this republican victory in
North Carolina and these heavy republican
| gains on the popular vote In Kentucky still
remain to be accounted for. The free admis-
sion of the blacks to the polls by the democrats
is not a sufficient explanation. The repub-
lcans in these elections have evidently been
making some gains from the other side, or
general apathy has weakened the democrats,
and if so, wherefore? The new departure of
the Northern democracy meets the case ex-
actly, and completely solves the problem.
1t will be remembered that, close upon the
heels of the unexpected victory of the demo-
Gratis last March in New Hampshire, the
Northern copperheads of the party and the
unreconstructed Southern fire-eaters hailed
the result as the beginning of great political
revolution, from which, in 1872, 1.-THE radical
despotism at Washington will be swept away,
with all its works, including niger equality
and nigger suffrage" 1t will be remembered
that even JEFF Davis was reused from his
slumbers by these strange democratic Bour-
bon rejOicings, and was inspired to make
number Of speeches looking to the revival and
ultimate success of the lost cause beginning
his talks at Selma, Alabama. II will be re-
membered that these unreasonable rejoicngs
, Of silly copperheads and Southern fire-eaters,
including the congratulations of Davis. were
taken up by the republicans in the April Con-
necticut election, and that on the issues of
the war thus revived they carried the State,
and thus completely extingulshed the New
Hampshire democratic revolution. It will
next be remembered that Mr.. valandgham,
of Ohio, fully convinced at last that to fight
butting the heads of the democracy against
stone wall, be led of on the new departure ="
e. A L