The Sun.
London, England, 1866-09-01 00:00:00

TO THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES.

Having met in Convention at the city of Philadelphia,
in the state of Pennsylvania, this 16th day of August, 1866,
as the representatives of the people in all sections, and all
the States and Territories of the Union, to consult upon
the condition and the wants of our common country, wo
address to you this declaration of our principles, and of the
political purposes we seek to promote.
Since the meeting of the last National Convention, in
the year 1860, events have occurred which have changed
the character of our internal politics, and given to the
United States a new place among the nations of the earth.
Our Government have passed through the vicissitudes and
the perils of civil war—a war which, though mainly sec-
tional in its character, has nevertheless decided political
differences that from the very beginning of the Govern-
ment had threatened the unity of our national existence,
and has left its impress deep and ineffaceable upon all the
interests, the sentiments, and the destiny of the Republic.
While it has inflicted upon the whole country severe
losses in life and property, and has imposed burdens which
must weigh on its resources for generations to come, it has
developed a degree of national courage in the presence of
national dangers— a capacity for military organisation and
achievement, and a devotion on the part of the people to
the form of government which they have ordained, and to
the principles of liberty which that government was de-
signed to promote, which must confirm the confidence of
the nation in the perpetuity of its Republican institutions,
and command the respect of the civilised world.
Like all great contests which rouse the passions and
test the endurance of nations, this war has given new
scope to the ambition of political parties, and fresh impulse
to plans of innovation and reform. Amidst the chaos of
conflicting sentiments inseparable from such an era, while
the public heart is keenly alive to all the passions that
can away the public judgment and affect the public action ;
while the wounds of war aro still fresh and bleeding on
either side, and fears for the future take unjust propor-
tions from the memories and resentments of the past, it is
difficult but an imperative duty which on your behalf we, a
who are here assembled, have undertaken to perform.
For the first time after six long y
from every State and
years of alienation and
of conflict, we have coma together
every section of our land, as citizens o
commona
m coun-
try, under that flag, the symbol again of a no
to consult together how best to cement and mernpegtlltotrayte,
perpetuate,
that Union which is again the object of our common o
and thus secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves andve
our posterity.
In the first place we invoke you to remember, always and
everywhere, that the war is ended and the nation is again
at peace. (Loud applause.) The shock of contending
arms no longer assails the shuddering heart of the republic.
The insurrection against the supreme authority of the
nation has been suppressed, and that authority has been
again acknowledged by word and Act, in every
lauState an
and
by every citizen within its jurisdiction. (Appse.) e
are no longer required or permitted to regard or treat each
other as enemies. Not only have the acts of war been dis-
continued, and the weapons of war laid aside, but the state
of war no longer exists, and the sentiments, the plosions,
the relations of war, have no longer lawful or rightful
place anywhere throughout our broad domain. We are
again people of the United States, fellow-citizens of one
country, bound by the duties and obligations of a
common patriotism, and having neither rights nor in-
terestsapart from a common destiny. The duties that de-
volve upon us now are again the duties of peace, and. no
longer the duties of war. We have assembled here to take
we counsel concerning the interests of peace ; to decide how
may
most
wiselyy
and effectually heal the wounds the
war has
made, and perfect and perpetuate the benefits it
has secured, and the blessings which, under a wise and
benign Providence, have sprung
up in its fiery track. This
is the work act of passion,butof calm and soberjudgment ;
not of resentment for past offences prolonged beyond the
limits which justice and reason prescribe, but of a liberal
statesmanship which tolerateswtats cannot prevent ,
uponand
builds its plans and its hopes for the future rather
a community of interest and ambition than upon distrust
and the weapons of force. (Great applansa
In the next place, we call upon you to recognise
full significance, and to accept with all theirnslee in their
consequences, the political results of the war just closed.
In two most important particulars the victory achieved by:
the national Government has been final and decisive. First,
it has established beyond all further controversy, and by
the highest of all human sanctions, the absolute supremacy
of the national Government, as defined and limited by
the Constitution of the United States, and the permanent
integrity and indissolubility of the Federal Union as a
necessary consequence ; and second, it has put an end
finally and for ever to the existence of slavery upon the
soil or -within the jurisdiction of the United States. Both
these points became directly involved in the contest, and
controversy upon both was ended absolutely and finally
by the result.
In the third place, we deem it of the utmost importance
that the real character of the war and the victory by which
it was closed should be accurately understood. The war
Was carried on by the Government of the United States in

maintenance of its own authority and in defence of its
own existence, both of which were menaced by the insur-
rection which it sought to suppress. The suppression of
that insurrection accomplished that result. The Govern-
ment of the United States maintained by force of arms the
supreme authority over all the territories, and over all the
States and people within its jurisdiction, which the Con-
stitution confers upon it ; but it acquired thereby no new
power, no enlarged jurisdiction, no rights either of terri-
torial possession or of civil authority which it did not
possess before the rebellion broke out. (Applause.) All the
rightful power it can ever possess is that which is conferred
upon it, either in express terms or by fair and necessary
implication, by the Constitution of the United States. It
was that power and that authority which the rebellion
sought to overthrow, and the victory of the Federal arms
was simply the defeat of that attempt. The Government
of the United States acted throughout the war on the de-
fensive. It sought only to hold possession of what was
already its own. Neither the war nor the victory by
which it was closed changed in any way the Constitution of
the United States. The vi ar was carried on by virtue of its
provisions, and under the limitations which they prescribe,
and the result of the war did not either enlarge, abridge,
or in any way change or affect the powers it confers upon
the Federal Government, or release that Government from
the restrictions which it has imposed.
The Constitution of the United States is to-day pre-
cisely as it was before the war, the "supreme law of the
land, anything in the constitution or laws of any State to
the contrary notwithstanding ;" and to-day, also, precisely
as before the war, all the powers not conferred by the
Constitution upon the general Government, nor prohibited
by it to the States, are "reserved to the several States, or
to the people thereof."
This position is vindicated not only by the essential
nature of our Government, and the language and spirit of
the Constitution, but by all the acts and the language of
our Government, in all its departments, and at all times
from the outbreak of the rebellion to its final overthrow.
In every message and proclamation of the Executive it was
explicitly declared that the sole object and purpose of the
war was to maintain the authority of the Constitution and
to preserve the integrity of the Union ; and Congress more
than once reiterated this solemn declaration, and added the
assurance that, whenever this object should be attained,
war should cease, and all the States should retain their
equal rights and dignity unimpaired. It is only since the
war has ceased that other rights have been asserted on
behalf of one department of the general Government. It
has been proclaimed by Congress that, in addition to the
powers conferred upon it. by the Constitution, the Federal
Government may now claim over the States, the territory
and the people involved in the insurrection, the rights of
war, the right of conquest and of confiscation, the right to
abrogate all existing governments, institutions, and laws,
and to subject the territory conquered and its inhabitants
to such laws, regulations, and deprivations as the legisla-
tive departments of the Government may see fit to impose.
Under this broad and sweeping claim that clause of the
Constitution which provides that "no State shall
without its consent be deprived of its equal suffrage
in the Senate of the United States" has been annulled,
and ten States have been refused, and are still refused,
representation altogether in both branches of the
Federal Congress. And the Congress in which only
a part of the States and the people of the Union are repre-
sented has asserted the right thus to exclude the rest from
representation, and from all share in making their own laws
or choosing their own rulers, until they shall comply with
such conditions and perform such acts as this Congress
thus composed may itself prescribe. That right has not
only been asserted, but it has been exercised, and is prac-
tically enforced at the present time. Nor does it find any
support in the theory that the States thus excluded aro in
rebellion against the Government, and are therefore pre-
cluded from sharing its authority. They are not thus in
rebellion. They are one and all in an attitude of loyalty
towards the Government, and of sworn allegiance to the
Constitution of the United States. In no one of them is

there the slighest indication of resistance to this authority,
or the slightest protest against its just and binding obliga-
tion. This condition of renewed loyalty has been officially
recognised by solemn proclamation of the executive de-
partment. The laws of the United States have been ex-
tended by Congress over all these State's and the people
thereof. Federal Courts have been re-opened, and Fede-
ral taxes imposed and levied, and in every respect, except
that they aro denied representation in Congress and the
Electoral College, the States once in rebellion are recog-
nised as holding the same position, as owing the same
obligations, and subject to the same duties as the other
States of our common Union.

It seems to us, in the exercise of the calmest and most
candid judgment that we can bring to the subject, that
such a claim, so enforced, involves as fatal an overthrow
of the authority of the Constitution, and as complete a
destruction of the Government and Union, as that which
was sought to be effected by the States and people in
armed insurrection against them both. It cannot escape
observation that the power thus asserted to exclude certain
States from representation is made to rest wholly iu the
will and discretion in the Congress that asserts it. It is
not made to depend upon any specified conditions or cir-
cumstances, not to be subject to any rules and regulations

whatever.
The address then recites the course adopted by the pre-
sent Congress towards the States recently in rebellion,
and proceeds to discuss the Constitutional questions in-
volved, claiming that because of the connection of its
people with rebellion, no State forfeited its Constitutional
right to representation—which representation the address
declares is imposed as a duty essential to the existence of
the Government and the maintenance of its authority. The
act of withdrawal of Southern representatives from Con-
gress was an act of rebellion committed when the insurrec-

tion was suppressed. Neither the right of representation
nor the duty to be represented was in the least impaired
by the fact of insurrection ; bat it may have been that by
reason of the insurrection on the conditions on which the
enjoyment of that right and the performance of that duty
for the time depended could not be fulfilled. This was, in
fact, the case. An insurgent Power, in the exercise of
usurped and unlawful authority in the territory under its
control, had prohibited that allegiance to the Constitution
and laws of the United States which is made by the
fundamental law the essential condition of representation
in its government. No man within the insurgent States
was allowed to take the oath to support the Constitution
of the United States, and, as a necessary consequence, no
man could lawfully represent those States in the councils
of the Union. But this was only an obstacle to the enjoy-
ment of the right and to the discharge of the duty —it did
not annul the one nor abrogate the other; and it ceased to
exist when the usurpation by which it was created had
been overthrown, and the States had again resumed their
allegiance to the Constitution and laws of the United
States.

The right of Congress to exercise the-power of conquer-
ors where a domestic insurrection has been suppressed is
next discussed. The functions of the Government during
the rebellion are shown to have been in full operation,
hence its lawful jurisdiction was complete, thereby pre-
serving and defending the Constitution, which can only be
enlarged or abridged by the words prescribed in that instru-
ment, and is not made contingent upon the party or
sectional exigencies or forbearance of the hour.

We need not stop to show that such action not only
finds no warrant in the Constitution, but is at war with
every principle of our Government, and with the very ex-
istence of free institutions. It is, indeed, the identical
practice which has rendered fruitless all attempts hitherto
to establish and maintain free government in Mexico and
the States of South America. Party necessities assert
themselves as superior to the fundamental law, which is
set aside in reckless obedience to their behests. Stability,

whether in the exercise of power, in the administration of
governments,
or in the enjoyment of rights, becomes im-
P°BBlble ; and the conflicts of party, which, under consti-
tional
armerged in the conflicts of arms to which they
government are the conditions and means of political
progress,and
ovh inevitablyeartnthe e
n
ttend.
dirTechtely
claime
•
suppression of an insurrection
against the m
power to that Government, ives additional authority and
especiallygives that
that it enlarges the
jurisdiction of Congress and
exclude States from representation in
body the right to
nthe national
coun-
cils, without which the nation itself can have
no autho-
rity and no existence, seems to us at v • arianee alike with
the principles of the Constitution and wt •
th the public
safety.
The address next discusses the power of Congress to
prescribe amendments to the Constitution without the con-
currence of States to be most seriously affected by such
amendments, and declares such an exercise of power, a
usurpation not justified or palliated by anything in the past
history of those most affected by such acts. It findsno war-
rant in the Constitution. It is at war with the fundamental
of our form of government. If tolerated in one
principles
instance, it becomes the precedent for future invasions of
liberty and constitutional right dependent solely upon the
will of the party in possession of power, and thus leads, by
direct and necessary sequence, to the most fatal and intoler-
able of all tyrannies—the tyranny of shifting and irre-
sponsible political factions. It is against this, the most
formidable of all the dangers which menace the stability
of free government, that the Constitution of‘the United
States was intended most carefully to provide. We de-
mand a strict and steadfast adherence to its provisions. In
this, and in this alone, can we find a basis of permanent
Union and peace.
Fourth—But it is alleged in justification of the usurpa-
tion which we condemn, that the condition of the Southern
States and people is not such as renders safe their read-

mission to a share in the government of the country; that
they are still disloyal in sentiments and purpose, and that
neither the honour, the credit, nor the interests of the
nation would be safe if they were readmitted to a share in
its councils. This plea rests upon a complete misappre-
hension, or an unjust perversion of existing facts.
We do not hesitate to affirm, that there is no section of
the country where the Constitution and laws of the United
States find a more prompt ard entire obedience than in
those States, and among those people who were lately in
arms against them; or where there is less purpose or dan.
ger of any future attempt to overthrow their authority. It
would seem to be both natural and inevitable that, in States
and sections so recently swept bey the whirlwind of war,