Staunton Vindicator

[Special Correspondence of the Baltimore Gazette.]

A Radical senator Declares that general Grant is the Prince of Radicals

Washington, Nov. 18, 1868.

A distinguished Radical Senator, who arrived in this city last evening, says that the idea now becoming so prevalent of General Grant's conservative views will prove delusive. He bases this declaration upon his knowledge of Grant's political faith, as derived from the General immediately after his nomination by the Chicago Convention

Among other things, he says Grant emphatically declared to him a full endorsement of negro suffrage, enforced, if necessary, by Congressional action. In a protracted conversation on the subject between the General and a number of Radical Congressmen, he said he had at one time opposed extending the right of franchise to freedmen, but that his views had undergone a radical change on that question, and that he now regarded it as essentially necessary for their protection that they should be armed with the ballot. This Senator further says, that during the latter portion of the last session of Congress Grant was in the lead of all Radical measures, and favored the most Radical method of executing the several reconstruction acts. Hence he laughs at the idea that Grant's inaugural will lay out conservative policy for his administration, unless an administration of the laws, as exacted and understood by the Radical party, be considered conservative. Our Senatorial informant further stated that General Grant had no doubt fixed upon the whole of his Cabinet, except a Secretary of the Treasury, and upon this he would probably decide while in New York. He thinks Mr. Motley, late Minister to Austria, will be tendered the State Department.