Staunton Spectator

There seems to be no doubt that the Representatives elect from the Southern States will be denied admission to their seats until after the House shall have been organized, and there seems to be as little doubt that an effort, at least, will be made by the Radicals to keep them out altogether.

McPherson, the clerk, has declared he will not place upon the list of members of Congress elect from the Southern States, and Colfax, the Speaker, says that he is right. McPherson says the next Speaker must appoint a committee to report upon the eligibility of the gentlemen who claim to represent the States lately in rebellion and if the aforesaid Colfax is elected Speaker of the next House of Representatives, he will appoint the committee whose report will go very far to decide the fate of the Southern members elect.

Colfax, says the Richmond Times, having prejudged the whole question, and announced his decision in advance of all Congressional discussion, the character of the committee which he will appoint cannot be doubted. Thus, at the moment when speedy peace and reconstruction seemed about to crown the nation with a thousand blessing, the dark shadow of continued sectional strife again casts a gloom like the sun "in dim eclipse" over the land. The patriotic reconstruction policy of the president is endangered at the moment when good men believed that he was about to receive the support of all parties. Really, it would seem that so far as the South and her people are concerned, no concessions, no sacrifices, no compromises, no pledge of fealty to the Union, the laws and the Constitution will satisfy the Radical element of the North. The Jacobin wolf has determined to invent some pretext or excuse for devouring the lamb, and assigns the most unnatural, monstrous and detestable reasons for his policy of sectional strife and disintegration.

Whatever honorable men could do consistent with honor and self-respect, we have done, or have expressed a willingness to do, and yet we are still told that we have given insufficient proofs of our fitness for re-admission into the great family of States.

We sincerely trust that the influence of President Johnson may be cast in our favor, and that he may be able to defeat the machinations of the Radicals in Congress; but if he cannot or does not do so, the South, we fear, is destined to endure a long period of degrading probation to "taxation without representation," and of the subordination of civil rule to martial law.

Such a rejection of Southern representatives would violate the fundamental principle of republican institutions, for we should have taxation without representation, and would be held amenable to laws in the framing of which we had no voice.

A new order of things has been established. henceforth we of the North are to be untrammelled. We are to enjoy an independent press, a fearless pulpit and an unquestioned right to agitate to our heart's content. Genuflection is to be counted a deformity and not a graceful accomplishment. Officious interference is to be rebuked and unmanly servility to be despised.--Franklin Repository, Chambersburg, Pa.

The Repository is a Republican paper, and claims all for the North and the denies all to the South. The "North are to be untrammelled" -- the South to be shackled; the North to have an independent press" -- the South a servile one; the North "an unquestioned right to agitate to their heart's content" -- the South no right to agitate at all; in the North "genuflection is to be counted a deformity" -- in the South, a "graceful accomplishment;" on the part of the South, "officious interference is to be rebuked" -- on the part of the North, commended; on the part of the North, "unmanly servility is to be despised" -- on the part of the South, it is to be required. We are part of the same people, in the same Union, under the same flag and Government. "Oh liberty! how many crimes are committed in thy name!"

The Richmond Whig says that the statistics, collected by a Northern contemporary, show that the mortality among the freedmen of the South ranges from thirty to fifty per cent., varying in different localities, and according to the circumstances in which they are placed, and this with all the aid extended by the Freedmen's Bureau. At this rate, it will not require many years to put them all under the sod. There is, we believe, but one thing that can arrest this fearful mortality, and that is the protection and guardianship of the Southern whites. It is manifest to the whole country that they must occupy the relation of wards. If they remain here they must be wards of the whites. "God moves in a mysterious way," and it may be that their sufferings in the past few months were inflicted to convince them and out Northern countrymen that the negroes must have guardians, and to reconcile them both to the guardianship and protection of those among whom their lot is cast since other guardianship and protection of those among whom their lot is cast, since other guardianship is, confessedly, impossible.