The Wheeling Daily Intelligencer

The Intelligencer:

A. W. CAMPBELL.
L. A. HAGANS.

JOHN FREW.
G. D. HALL.

CAMPBELL.
FREW
CO.

EDITORS AND PROPRIETORS.

MONDAY MORNING, MARCH 25.

The Negro as a Voter---The Virginia: Lans Waking up to the Necessity of Looking after Him.

Last week's Anti-Slavery Standard has a letter in it from Wendell Phillips, who is a regular contributor now, taking the ground that the South is to be treated in the process of reconstruction pretty much as Rarey treated his horses. He explained what he means as follows:

"Rarey told me that he never felt he could trust a horse till every muscle and fibre yielded its tension and became slack and relaxed. 'That was the sign that the animal gave up. Till then, Rarey watched and held him. He was the wisest of reconstructionists. No Southern muscle has yet relaxed. It is not yet safe to trust that Cruiser. Keep the straps on awhile. The time for confidence comes when the animal has thoroughly learned our power and purpose to use it, and gives up.'

We should judge by a letter in the last received Richmond Dispatch, that the Virginians are getting pretty near in the condition of Cruiser when he became "slack and relaxed!" The writer of the letter informs us that loyal Union leagues are in general existence, and that the members are exerting themselves to concentrate the negro vote in favor of "radical" candidates. He urges, and the editor calls it "good advice," that the people of Virginia-the orthodoxists, he means-should turn in and labor unceasingly with their former slaves, cultivate and enlighten them, and make them their fast friends, politically and socially.

He affirms that

"The negro is willing to vote with us if we wish it so, and we can, without any sacrifice, secure their aid now, and hold them safely in any future emergency.

"The preachers, teachers, and officers of the Freedmen's Bureau in our section have not used their influence, so far, to sow dissension between the two races in the matter of elections. But they have a perfect right to recommend and advise a concentration of this vote in behalf of any candidate that will represent its interests fairly. We may unite with them; and there can be no objection to the negroes being fairly represented. Everything is to be gained by selecting those who are fully impressed with the situation, and able to dispense impartial legislation to the two races. The negroes will readily unite in support of these men for any office.

"We shall have, sooner or later, to get rid of all squeamishness, and boldly face the music. The negroes are going to vote whether we do or not, and somebody ought to advise them, and will advise them, how to vote, and it is time we were girding on our loins either to swim with the current or to be carried down by it."

We agree with the editor of the Dispatch, that the foregoing is "sound advice." It shows that the "muscle and fibre" of the old Virginia regime, is yielding its tension," and that Phillips' idea of reconstruction is being obeyed already.

The Richmond Times declares itself highly gratified at the proposal of Senator Wilson to stump the South, and boasts of the speedy manner in which he and his coadjutors will be used up by Southern orators:

"Veterans who have spent half their years in demolishing rival orators will give these adventurous Puritans a dose which they will long remember, and their children will speak of the fate of their oratorical fathers who were devoured alive by the stumping rebels. There will be no discourtesy, no violence, no mobs, no riots, but simply a fair division of time, and a full discussion. We congratulate our orators upon the good time which has been promised them by Wilson. They may not find in the army of invading orators foemen worthy of their steel, but the game will be more worthy of our great stumpers than the vermin now haranguing the poor freedmen.

"Since the Southern delegates were excluded from Congress, men like Wilson, Wade and Stevens, who have, by long practice, acquired the rudiments of the art of extempore speaking, have lorded it at such a rate over the poor devils who always read their speeches, that they are puffed up with the most ludicrous vanity. It is full time that this conceit was taken out of them, and if they will venture South and meet our gifted popular orators in discussion, they will be hurried back to Plymouth Rock pursued by such a roar and cannonade of Southern oratory, that Wilson will be forcibly reminded of the horrors of the first battle of Bull Run, when he led the column of fugitives who dashed across Long Bridge and spread panic and pale dismay through the Federal capital."

It is a comfort to know that there will be "no violence," and that the old-time arguments of hemp and tar and feathers will now be superseded by a "fair division of time and a full discussion." The boasts above made, will very likely prove as baseless as similar ones of Southern physical prowess were shown to be a few years since.

A Practical man in Louisiana has proposed a scheme for the elevation of the negro, which is extremely liberal for that latitude. Realizing that the blacks have a strong affection for their homes, and a great desire to become land owners, he proposes to sell to each head of a family of negroes, and to each unmarried male negro who may be eighteen years of age or more, a farm of twenty acres, to be allotted to him, if practicable, on the estate of his former master. The latter is to build on his farm a log cabin and cowhouse for the negro, rough it may be, but as comfortable as negro quarters ordinarily are. This is to be the negro's estate, for which he shall pay to the proprietor a certain sum-say $2,000 more or less. This amount is to be furnished by the Agricultural Real Estate Loan Company, and secured by a mortgage to one half the value of the estate, and by the United States. It is thought that in time the negro would be able to pay off the mortgage, and meanwhile he would easily keep down the interest.

This plan, which may or may not be a feasible one, is heartily endorsed by the New Orleans Times, and is chiefly significant as showing an advance in sentiment which allows the consideration of a project to give the colored man a freehold.

At the recent election at Prague, a speaker, in proposing the candidate of the Bohemian Central Committee, concluded as follows: "Now every one of you take a blank ballot and a shilling. Those who are in favor of B. will put their ballots in the box; those who are opposed, will put in the shilling." Result-unanimous election of B.

A Confederate paper meditates- "The President triumphant, the Southern States with a majority in Congress, the southern blacks held in bondage, with Stephens and Brooks and Vallandigham running the machine." what would five-twenties be worth then?"

-As a matter of record, it may be interesting to future generations to know that the night of March 13-14, 1867, was one of the coldest of the year.