The Evil of the Civil Rights Law- The President- The Treasury

The Dispatch looks to criticize northerners for agreeing with Radical policy despite "not understand[ing] it" but offers hope in the form of the re-election of the Secretary of the Treasury whom the Dispatch argues can "do more good for this country than the radical fraction"

It is a very general opinion that the evil of the Civil Rights law will chiefly be in the encouragement which it will give to the Radicals to persevere in their efforts to impose by force upon the lately insurrectionary States a system of negro suffrage, whether limited or universal ; and I may say confidently that this is the interpretation of the measure, so far as the radical Republicans are concerned. besides, it tens to bring all the Republicans- that is, all Union men- to the radical ground. The President saw this. He is the shrewdest of all living politicians. His fears are justified. The people of the North accept the Civil Rights bill with almost universal claim. They believe in it, because they do not understand it. How few can pretend to unravel all its mysteries and solve all its doubts? Who is to say what the framers of the bill meant by a learned men of law to have been left inexplicable? But let us pass to a more agreeable subject. The Secretary of the Treasury, the greatest conservative financial authority of the country, has been sustained by the Senate in his policy of contraction and resumption with th almost unanimous vote of the Senate. The passage of the bill, at this time, will, I may venture to say, do more of good for this country than the radical fraction can by their measures do it harm. Propositions for the increase of the national bank currency have been met with provisions for the more equal distribution of the amount of such currency now authorized. it is to be hoped that Congress will now give us a revenue tariff.

“The Evil of the Civil Rights Law- The President- The Treasury,” Reconstructing Virginia, accessed March 30, 2023, https://reconstructingvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/111.