Staunton Vindicator

A nice commentary upon the Radical demand for impartial suffrage in the South is found in the fact that only eight of twenty-two States controlled by the Radicals permit such suffrage. Of the New England States Connecticut is the only one that refuses the ballot to colored men. Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont make no distinction whatever in respect to suffrage, but Massachusetts and Rhode Island do. The laws of Massachusetts requires the voter to be able to read the Constitution of the United States in the English language and to write his name.--Know-Nothingism in the its suffrage law, by declaring that every native male citizen may vote. In New York negroes with certain qualifications are allowed to vote; that is, such as are worth two hundred and fifty dollars, and have been in the State three years. In Wisconsin negroes are allowed to vote by virtue of a decision by the Supreme Court of that State upon a technicality. In Ohio the greater part of the negroes vote, although the law gives the ballot only to those who have more than half-white blood. Darkeys who are black as charcoal can vote there in the Radical districts under the half-white law. In nearly all of the other States, however, the Radicals have declined, by tests in popular elections, to give the negroes that which they so strenuously insist the Southern people shall give them.--New York Sun.

Senator Wilson, of Massachusetts, delivered an address to the people of Petersburg on Thursday, 4th inst.. Although a number of whites were present, among whom were some of the prominent citizens, yet the colored people were more numerously represented. He spoke plainly and candidly, boldly declaring that he was a Radical Republican, and defended the acts of his party, while he denounced the Democracy. He asserted that the late war was "unavoidable," for which "the North and South were both responsible and both were alike guilty."--We doubt not he uttered his candid opinions, but when we remember that Mr. Wilson has acted, as he asserts, with the Radical Republicans in Congress, and has had no small share in the passage of bills inflicting punishments on the already sorely punished South, for the part she took in th war, which he declares "was unavoidable," and recall the fact that he was lately instrumental in imposing unjust conditions on the Southern people for the course they pursued, we can not convince ourselves that his acts have not grossly belied his words. For why vote to inflict punishments on the South and not on the North as well -- why exact conditions from the South, which according to this assertion, are more manifestly unjust, since they are not demanded of the North, and yet the "North and South are both responsible and both alike guilty." Really there is such a conflict between the words and acts of the Massachusetts Senator, that we fear his efforts will be fruitless here, while his Northern friends will read him off of the Radical list for proclaiming that the North was equally guilty with the South, and thus condemning his own and the acts of his party friends. We always knew that the Southern climate had a powerful effect in modifying and even changing the sentiments of Northern men who came this way, but we did not expect Mr. Wilson, a Radical leader in Congress, to be so biased by a short visit. We advise Thad and Sumner to keep their cohorts well in hand, or in their stump speeches in the South they will be letting out the whole truth, that the North was responsible for the late war, and alone guilty, and now desires to destroy the Southern lamb because it did not muddy the stream.

A correspondent of a Northern Republican paper, writing from Charleston, says:

It is very clear to any one who has watched the political current in this quarter of late that the colored men will vote as a unit.--There is quite a large number of them who were free before the war, and who hold themselves partially aloof from the rest.--These, to a man, announce their determination to stand by the old white residents in whatever action they may take. On the other hand, there is more numerous party, composed chiefly of idlers from the plantations, who have found their way into the city, where they live from hand to mouth, who are convinced that their release from daily toil was accomplished by the Radical party of the North, and who may therefore be relied upon to vote and act with the men who represent and are endorsed by that party.--But the most numerous class of all is made up of sensible freedmen, who are now earning a living by honest labor, who are intelligent enough to think for themselves, and to act as they believe their own interest dictate. Perhaps if they followed their own impulse merely, they might imitate the example of their shiftless and improvident brethren from the country, and give their support to the Radical candidates. But it must be borne in mind that these men derive their subsistence almost entirely from white employers, and they will take heed how they put their livelihood in jeopardy, for the sake of what, to them, is now a mere political abstraction. In view of these facts I find that the shrewdest observers here are of opinion that either a majority of the blacks will be found supporting the whites at the polls, or that if this should not be the case, the freedmen's vote will be divided so as to become a matter of little comparative importance. If this be true in Charleston and along the seacoast, it is even more so in the interior, where the freedmen are less exposed to the influence of political agitators. The gathering of negroes that have lately taken place, to listen to harangue from orators, white and black, were rather tame affairs, having been gotten up in the interest of a few would-be leaders of the colored population.