The President's veto of the Negro Suffrage Bill for the
District of Columbia had of course no result. Both Houses of Congress immediately passed it over his head by more than two-thirds' ma- jorities. And there has already been a very remarkable test of the political efficiency of the measure for the only purpose for which we have ever advocated it,—the protection of the negroes from oppression. Mr. Wallack, the Mayor of Washington, had month after month and year after year refused, on the most trivial pre- texts, to pay to the Congressional trustees appointed for that purpose the portion of the school fund provided by Congress for the separate maintenance of schools for coloured children, for whom the city had repeatedly refused to make.any provision what- ever. Congress has again and again legislated on the matter to rectify this dishonesty, but to no purpose. No sooner, however, did Congress give the coloured population votes, than at their very next meeting the Board of Aldermen passed a resolution " autho- rizing the Mayor to pay to the coloured schools the balance due by Act of Congress,"—a sum amounting to nearly 2,000/. sterling. The real sum due is said to be 4,0001. But the Mayor and Cor- poration have never before acknowledged any debt at all. What better practical retort upon the President's veto could there bey than this hasty disgorgement of embezzled money by the creatures, who were highest in praise of the Presidential policy ?
