QUESTION FOR THE UNITED STATES.

Southland Times, Issue 931, 10 April 1868, Page 3

QUESTION FOR THE UNITED STATES.

(From the " New York Herald," Jan 6.) Shall this great and proud Republic be governed by a negro balance of power ? That is the important question new before the country. Shall thirty-five millions of the Caucasian race — the highest type of mankind — be ruled by a few millions of ignorant negroes, who are the lowest in the order of human beings, and who are scarcely removed from barbarism ? Such a proposition Would seem incredible were it not supported by fact. Some may doubt even whether such a monstrous ' idea would be seriously entertained by any party or faction, and may think that we state "the case too broadly. There is, however, no exaggeration : it is the wellknown purpose of the Radicals to perpetuate their power, if possible, through the votes of the Southern negroes. This has been their policy all along The spouting of Radical orators and emissaries about equality, th 3 rights of man, the poor negro, and all that, is sheer hypocrisy and claptrap. These Radicals have refused to give the suffrages to the few negroes in those Northern States where they had the power to do so, and where the negro vote would be of little consequence comparatively, while they are doing the utmost to make the ignorant and degraded blacks of the South a controlling political element in the Republic. Who ever heard of anything more inconsistent or monstrous ? Such conduct seems like insanity, and could hardly be credited were there not examples in history of a similar character. The Jacobins in France shed rivers of blood in the name of humanity and equality, and the Puritan ancestors of our Jacobins of the present time were not less cruel and proscriptive in the name of religion and truth. The Radical revolutionists of France set up a strumpet as representing the Goddess of Reason, and committed the foulest deeds under the pretension of progress and a higher philosophy. It is the same in all countries and ages under revolutionary Radicalism, whatever form it may take. It is so now with our nigger worshippers and Radical revolutionists. Passion, fanaticism, and political ambition have subverted reason. • Everything must give way before their intolerant dogmas. Let the glorious institutions handed down to us by the fathers, this white man's gover^ent, so full of glory and happiness in the past and the future of our grand republic, perish for .the sake of an irrational and impracticable theory. That is the thepolicyofthe Radical Republicans. That is the cause of the trouble between the President and Congress. That is the great issue before the country — the issue to be decided in the next Presidential election. The issue is clearly defined. There is no possibility of smothering it up or dodging it. There is the patriotism and conversation of the President on one hand, and the selfish and destructive policy of the Radicals on the other. Mr Johnson, while he proposes to secure the freedom of the emancipated negroes, and to give them every chance to raise themselves in the scale of civilisation, desires the early restoration of the South through the action of the inteLigent white people. ! The Radicals would only restore the South on the basis of negro barbarism, for the sake of perpetuating their power through negro votes. The people everywhere are taking sides on this great issue, and by next November it will be so well understood that the election will turn upon it and it alone. Mr Johnson's policy, as shown in his message to Congress and in his firm resistance to negro supremacy, will and must be the platform on one side; and negro supremacy, with a negro balance of power as provided for in the reconstruction acts and course of a Radical Congress, will be the platform on the other. The election cannot be contested on any other ground Men or names will amount to little in the coming contest ; principles will be everything. Nor can he or any other candidate succeed by ignoring the principles at issue and by standing on personal popularity only. Mr Johnson stands alone at present as the representative of the Conservative side, for he has j made the issue, and the solution of it depends upon his action. He is, as has been said before, master of the situation. He cannot be ser aside. He must either ibe the Conservative candidate, or must name one to take his place. Mr Ohase is the repiesentative of the other side — a Radicalism,^ of negro supremacy, of of

negro balance of power, and of all the other extremes of the Radical party. Should he and Mr Johnson be the opposing candidates, they would represent fully and clearly the principles involved.