A hopeful sign

Congress discusses the repeal of the Test Oath as southerners fight for readmission.

That there is some good reason for hoping that the President will disappoint the Radicals in their efforts to exclude the members of Congress from the Southern States is abundantly shown by the out-givings of Mr.Forney. In his paper of yesterday he says: "It would be a graceful acknowledgment not alone of the undaunted patriotism of the brave men of the South, who, through flame and death, have maintained the good fight, but a just deference to an overwhelming public expectation, if the Tennessee Senators and members could be immediately admitted to Congress, and speedy action taken upon other applicants for seats- so that the different branches of the Government, executive and legislative, might once more move along with harmony and vigor. Such we believe to be, also, the growing disposition of the two Houses. " Mr.Forney also, in the same paper, while protesting against the repeal of the test oath so far as it concerns the members of Congress, argues, very conclusively to a Southern mind, that it should be so modified as to exempt from its operation the hundreds of minor Government offices which it is necessary to fill before the work of reconstruction can be successfully completed. We have no room for comment.

“A hopeful sign,” Reconstructing Virginia, accessed May 28, 2023, https://reconstructingvirginia.richmond.edu/items/show/25.