Litchfield enquirer., 1878-11-14
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Thursday Nov. IA, 1878.
A Great Gain.

4 Great Gain. The November result is great gain on those of September and October. All the prelimi- nary contests, excepting that in Ohio indicat- ed rapid spread of the Greenback epidemic even at the East. The soft money poison seemed injecting the whole North as complete ly as the yellow fever poison infected the banks ofthe lower Mississippi. The frosts of Novem- Der killed both. The loss of a representative in reliable Vermont, of two each in Maine and Iowa, and number more in the central West, indicated that Republication would only be in wretchedly small minority in the next House of Representatives. November turns a short corner andmore than makes up the losses of the earlier elections The Democrats are even weaker than in the present House, where their majority is 30 small that the House ire quently gets entirely out of their control. So rapid transition from an apparently hopeless decline of power, to wonderful renewal of strength is almost without parallel in the history of politics. We do net recollect sin gle instance in which November has ever be- fore so completely reversed the judgments of September and October. The election of Re- publicans and the depression of Democrats are all the greater because the victories of the for mer and the defeats of the latter came upon them so unexpectedly. The reasons of this sudden change seem to be chiefly these :: a reaction against the folly of fiat money; indignation at the unfairness of the very Southern Democrats who owe their control of their states entirely to the fairness of a Republican administratiop; and the dis gust with which all candid people have read of the briberies attempted by the Democratic managers in 1876, as disclosed by the cipher dispatches.
 1t was not till the earlier elections disclosed the dangers to be anticipated from the Green back movement that Hard Money became thoroughly aroused in opposition. It has been 50 much the habit of professional politicians to dodge difficult and disturbing problems of this kind, that it has not been often that this ques- tion has been fairly met. In November, the Republicans of the Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, made finance the chief issue. They met and completely routed their opponents, who yielded more or less to the Greenback theory of finance It would be too much to say that the party of Imitation IS destroyed but it has met the severest check it's progress has yet en- countered:
 The defiant denial of the right of free bal lot to South Carolina Republicans by South Carolina Democrats has done much to unite Northern Republicans of all shades of opin- ion, against such ungrateful injustice and op- pression. There are many Republicans, our selves among the rest, who have rejoiced to see the Carpet Bag tyrannies swept from the face of the land They were too rotten to live. The Ku Klux barbarities which have of late disgraced South Carolina and Louisiana under the government of Hampton and Nichols are as unnecessary as they are atrocious. free election would not have overthrown the Dem- ocratic power in either of those states. It was not that they feared defeat, but because they were determined that there should be no oppo- sition that they practically prohibited the Re- publcans of those states from organizing and casting their party vote. If Southern whites were allowed representation merely on the white population (which is only allowed the ballot in most of the reconstructed states) the national House of Representatives would be Republican to-day. The practical disfran- chisement of the Southern negro at the same time that he counts as a voter for the purpose of increasing the number of Southern Repre- sentatives in the lower house of Congress Is not only grossly unjust it is plainly unconsti- tutionaI The second section of the fourteenth amendment, ratified in 186S provides for just such contingency, as follows:
 Sec 2.-Representatives shall be apportion- ed among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole num- Der of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Rep- resentatives in Congress, the executive and ju- dicial officers of state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State being twenty one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged except for participa- in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of repre- sentation therein shall be reduced in the pro- portion which the number of such male citi- Zens shall have to the whole number of male citizens, twenty y-one years of age in such State.
 If, in any Southern State, an educational or property limitation of the suffrage is found necessary, let such States frankly meet the is sues, and adopt such limitation. In such case their representation in Congress would be re- duced in such proportion as the number of un qualified male citizens would bear to the whole number of m ale citizens in such state. Ther no Northern State could justly complain Now, they not only see members of the preva lent party North, persecuted and terrorized in to practical disfranchisement in the South, bu they see them still counting as full citizens t increase the Congressional representation o their respective states in Congress. We do no believe the North will long submit to such as grant injustice as this. Solid South will nc be allowed to retain so unjust and unconstitu tional an advantage against Solid North.
 The disclosures which have certainly crush ed Mir. Tilden's hopes of a renomination il 1880, have also greatly injured the party 0 which he is SO prominent leader. There ha been prevalent, and we have thought jus feeling, that the Democracy were cheated ou of presidency by Southern Republican Re turning boards. No man can help feeling nov that Mir. Tilden has never deserved that hig office. man who would ever be party to or to any extent cognizant of, the bribery plot ted through these telegrams, would be nothia but a disgrace to the country whose highes office he would administer. fanything coul reconcile us to the methods of the Souther Returning Board, it would be the methods such candidate for the Presidency as M
 Tilden.
 While condenning the Democratic suppre sion of Republicanism in South Carolina, Nil Redfeld, now of the Cincinnati Commercial reports that, ''There is a sensible diminutio