Valley Spirit

Forcing negro suffrage upon the same platform of political rights with white citizens by the bayonet is one thing, but persuading white men to voluntarily accept him as their equal at the ballot-box, a totally different affair. This the leaders of the Radical party are beginning to understand. Congress, by the assumption of extraordinary and unconstitutional powers, has destroyed the civil governments of ten States. The people in that section of the Union are prevented from fixing and determining the depositories of their own political power. The great American idea that all just and rightful authority proceeds from the people, has been trampled in the dust, and Congress not only says who shall be citizens, but how those citizens shall manage their state and local affairs. Under the lead of this monstrous perversion of the theory of a republican form of government, negro suffrage has been made a portion of the law governing the reconstruction of the late revolted States, and the black man is being registered in all the election districts South of the Potomac. No one pretends that this adulteration of the elective franchise meets the approval of the legal voters in that section. The change was made by the Radicals for political purposes. They need the negro vote to build up a party there, and hence the pilgrimage of Wilson, the formation of secret political societies, in which the negroes are to be trained to act with the dominant organization of the country, and the establishment of negro suffrage as one of the indispensable conditions of Southern reconstruction.

This being the course pursued at the South, an attempt is no being made to force negro suffrage upon the people of the Northern States through the agency and discipline of the Radical party. All the leading orators, counselors, managers, and presses of that party are clamoring for "manhood suffrage." In many of the States movements are already initiated to strike the word "white" from their constitutions, and thus put the negro upon the same political platform with white men.-

The Washington Chronicle declares that there is "just as absolute a necessity upon the North to adopt negro suffrage as upon the South," and notifies the people of New York, Maryland, New Jersey, and the other Northern States, that they must give the ballot to the negro, and thus "represent a progressive republic, whose vital principles are freedom and equality." But the voice of the Radical party, through its leaders, is not so potential in the Northern States as it is in the South, when enforced by acts of Congress and the military power of the nation. The Legislature of New Jersey would not endorse negro suffrage. In Ohio the people are indisposed to accept the dusky platform. In Wisconsin, the masses of the Radical party revolt at the tyranny and despotism of their leaders, and in this State they shrink from mooting an issue which is as distasteful to white men as it is dangerous to the stability of our political institutions. But the managers of the Radical party see the necessity for continued agitation upon the negro question, and they are determined that their followers shall go forward. To stop at this point is destruction. They need the votes of the negroes in the North, and to obtain them, and at the same time maintain their hold upon the fanatical element in this section, the issue of "universal manhood suffrage" will be pressed into the forground of all political contests, and the country will be convulsed, business impeded and the general prosperity of the nation injured to a ruinous extent.

If the masses [UNCLEAR] of the North will not agree to follow the negro-suffrage party, what then? Will the dominant faction yield to the will of the people? Will they allow the majority to rule? They have discarded this principle to the South, and elevated Congress into a Dictator. Will this be done in the North? The Chronicle , in alluding to the recent defeat of the negro suffrage party in Connecticut, which, it is said, will retard the work of freedom and keep a portion of the population under the dominion of a caste, remarks, "this will, however, all give way yet to Senator Wilson's bill which we hope to see introduced and passed over the inevitable veto immediately after the next meeting of Congress." When it is remembered that the bill of Senator Wilson here referred to, forces negro suffrage upon all the States, the coming programme of the Radical party can be clearly seen and fully understood. If the people will not agree to put the ballot in the hands of the negro in this and other States at the North, it will be placed there by Congress, and a passage-way cleared for him by bayonets to the ballot-box. Thus is the "poisoned chalice" about being returned to the lips of those who filled it for others. The supremacy of Congress over the Southern States established their attention is now turned to this section, and the civil rights of white men here are about to be made the sport and jest of a political faction as fierce, remorseless, and corrupt as that which disgraced France when that nation tottered in the throes of her great revolution. The end of this negro agitation is not yet, and the people must look at the threatened danger, and be prepared to meet it in a proper manner when it comes.-Age

The State Appropriation Bill, as originally gotten up and passed by the House, appropriated more than one million dollars in excess of the estimated receipts. At the last hour the Senate cut it considerably, so as to make the expenses a little more than the receipts $4,095,394. For the education of soldiers' orphans, the amount was reduced from $450,000 to $300,000. The pay of members was reduced to $1,000 for the session instead of $1,500, as originally contemplated. The Dixmount appropriated was cut down from $66, 082 to $50,000; for the House of Refuge, from $47,000 to $2,700; for St. Paul's Orphan Asylum from $15,000 to $8,000. The law granting pensions to the soldiers of 1812 and their widows was repealed. The Penitentiary appropriation was fixed at $20,800, the usual sum. The project of extension of the prison has been abandoned for the present.

The following are the prominent items of the bill.

A large number of our legislators-enough to corrupt legislative action-are purchasable." -New York Times,

"With a depth and infamy of Legislative corruption never before known, we are falling into a practice of wholesale and shameless bribery at elections, and that, too, in New England-in the 'land of steady habits' itself,"-Boston Transcript.

"The corruption at Washington and Albany are debauchers of the young; they are traitors, * * vermin, who are crawling under the foundations and destroying by corruption the vital powers of the Government,"-Henry Ward Beecher.

"The Legislature of 1867 is no more. It has fought its last fight-it has won its last stake. * They have passed sixteen hundred laws, 'pinched' others by the score, and finally, after three months of rioting, rotating, pinching, plundering, and pocketing, their time has come, and they go out as a rule, to return no more forever.-Chambersburg Repository.

"Bad as has been the character of our Legislature for years, it seems to be generally conceded that the body just adjourned was even more untrustworthy than any of its predecessors * All the Christian people in the State should join in thanks to the Throne of Grace that it did no more harm than it did. Another such Legislature would sink us."-Somerset Herald.

"Our Legislators are rascals. No decent man would like to win an 'Hon.' for his name in such company."-Chicago Post.

The New York Legislature, alluded to, stood: Senate-Radicals 27; Democrats 5; House-Radicals 82; Democrats 46. Radical majority on joint ballot, 58!

The Pennsylvania Legislature, alluded to, stood: Senate-Radicals 21; Democrats 12; House-Radicals 62; Democrats 38. Radical majority on joint ballot, 33!

The Illinois Legislature, alluded to stood: Senate-Radicals 21, Democrats 12; House-Radicals 62; Democrats 23. Radical majority in joint ballot, 46!

The Massachusetts Legislature, alluded to, stood: Senate-Radicals 40; Democrats 0; House-Radicals 229; Democrats 11.-Radical majority on joint ballot, 258!

The Rump Congress, alluded to, stood Senate-Radicals 43; Democrats and Conservatives 9; House-Radicals127; Democrats and Conservatives 36. Radical majority on joint ballot, 125!

By those large controlling majorities the legislation of the States and nation was performed. If it is corrupt and infamous-and we have abundant Radical testimony, other than the foregoing that it is-the people cannot fail to place the responsibility where it justly belongs. Having done so, it is for them to apply the corrective which it is their privilege to use, by electing, hereafter, none but honest and pure men, and so balancing party power as to make one a check upon the other, It is useless to look for purity or correct legislation when and where one political party holds so large a preponderance of power as is indicated above in the Congress and Legislatures of 1867. Equalize the political power, and each party will find it necessary to act honestly and purely in order to gain favor with the people. If the people are wise, they will at once curtail the corruptly wielded power of the Radical leaders.-Patriot and Union

The Conservative State Convention, which met at Nashville on the 16th, inst., and nominated Emerson Etheridge for Governor, was composed of whites and blacks.-Some difficulty was experienced upon the negro question-the old slaveholders maintaining that the negro should have the right to hold office as a necessary result of emancipation and the right to vote. The East Tennesseeans, who had been loyal throughout the war, and Northern Democrats, who had settled in Memphis and elsewhere since the war, strongly opposed action in that direction, but finally their objections were waived through the persuasions of the so-called "rebel" element, and, when a motion to that effect was made, the colored delegations were unanimously admitted. Resolutions were passed claiming for the negroes full equality in all political rights-including, of course, the right to hold office.

During the session a conservative negro named Joe Williams, it is stated, made a speech of considerable length in good sensible English, which was loudly applauded:

"He started out by saying that he had fought for the Union, and was for the freedom of his race. He was a Conservative because he believed the Conservatives were the best friends of his race in Tennessee.-For being a Conservative, the Radicals threatened to assassinate him; but he did not care. He might as well live in the interior of Africa as to try to live among these Radicals. He saw Radicals who had been in the rebel army; he saw Radicals who had been nigger-traders; and the Radical candidate for Governor was the worst enemy of the colored race in Tennessee, who had written worse books and newspapers against abolition than any other man. He couldn't vote for any such man, who had been all his life the enemy of the colored race, and was its enemy now, only he wanted its votes."

After the adjournment the negroes marched through the streets preceded by a negro brass band. During the march they were attacked by a mob of Radical darkies, but the police soon put the latter to flight.

The Conservatives are now decidedly ahead of the Radicals on the negro question. The latter refused to admit the negroes as delegates to their convention, held a short time before, and they deny the negroes the right to hold office whilst at the same time they are asking them for their votes. The Brownlow party are now known as copperheads. This action of the Southern or "rebel" element of the Conservative convention will compel the Radicals to alter their programme, and deal justly by the negroes. They gave the blacks the ballot merely to use them in electing Radicals who could not be elected on white votes, and had no intention of benefiting the negroes in any way whatever. They must and will be brought to the acknowledgement that the right to vote carries with it, always, the right to be voted for. The fanatical negro revolution will not stop until the United States Senate and the White House have had negro occupants.-Patriot & Union