Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1864-04-28
THE SHAREHOLDERS REBELLION.
SITS CAUSE AND PURPOSES"
SPEECH OF SENATOR HOWE,

ate II pm NC eohC Vic iOiiOhiA1S
Mr.. President, we have been struggling
with this rebellion for three years ana IL Is
one of the saddest facts know of in history
that, although we have pretty generally come
to concede that in law these rebels are guilty
of treason, vet there is to-day large body
of the people, standing almost in the very
blood the rebellion has shed, who affect TO
believe that. after all, this rebellion is one OF
the respectable kind of rebellions, a pretty
decent thing; that if 1t cannot be Justlned
there is q GREAT deal of excuse for it. tell
Won that sentiment is very prevalent through
ont these loyal communities and these loyal
States to-day.
hold that no such guilt as is personifed
in this rebellion has been allowed to stalk
abroad on the face Of Gods earth since He
allowed the earth to stand, as this same re-
helion is. Either you who palliate it are
right or am and If there be no sort of pal
Hation or excuse for that which you are con-
stantly attempting to palliate or excuse you
have heavy responsibility to settle for your
efforts in that direction.
After struggling with it for three years, af-
ter expanding our thousands OF millions OF
money and our thousands upon thousands of
lives and our rivers of blood in our effort to
crush the rebellion, was shocked, unutter-
ably shocked to hear the other day Senator,
in the employ of this government Of ours
and paid out of its treasury, straining himself
to complain of it, out Of a decent regard to
LOYALTY, and finding no word in the English
language that he dared to use in denuncia-
ton of it stronger than to say it was not
wise"
Sir, a representative from one of the loyal
States of the Union, paid by your money, a
couple of years since, standing in the House
of Representatives, representing district OF
that State which is represented here by the
honorable Senator from Ohio, Mr.. Wade,
discussing the merits of this rebellion, said 4:
"You have utterly, signally, disastrousy-I will
not say ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS to subdue ten mil
hon Erebes,' whom you taught the people OF the
north and west not only to hate but to desplse.
Rebels did L say ? Yes, your fathers rebels,
or your grand fathers. lie who now before me on
canvass looks down sadly upon US, the false de-
generate and imbece guardians of the great Re
public which he founded, was rebel. And yet We,
Graded ourselves in rebelion and who have foster
ed and fraternized with every Instruction in the
nineteenth century everywhere throughout the
globe, would now, torsooth, make the word rebel
areproach "-4ppendt1 to congressman GI06e,
Thirty SeVenM Congress, third session, page 90,
An American Representative in one of the
Halls of your own Legislature used this Ian
guage in reference to this very rebellion of
which | am speaking.
| beg leave to read to the Senate ex-
tract from Il speech made by Earl Russell at
Blair Gowrie on the 10th of September last
Speaking of the relations of the Crown to
the Confederate States, he uses this remarka-
BILE language:
ssWell, then, it was said that these confederate
States were rebels, rebels against the Union Per
haps, gentlemen, am not so nice as ought to DO
on the subject But l recollect that rebelled
against Charles L, "a laugh, rebelled against
James IL, and the people of New England, not
content with these two rebelions, rebeled against
IEE Ilnnr onH1 aTtuI I not
saying whether all these rebellions were justi
fable whether they were wrong-I am not say
ing whether the present rebellion in the Southern
States is a justifiable instruction or is a great
fault or is great crime, but say that the mere
fact OF rebellion is not in my eyes crime of so
deep dye that must renounce all fell owship
and communion and all relationship with those
who have been guilty of rebellion Loud cheering
But, certainly, If l look to the declarations of
those New England orators-and have been read
ing lately, if not the whole, yet very great part Of
the very long speech by MIR Sumner on the subject,
delivered at Now y ork-l own cannot but wonder
to see these men, the offspring as 1t We're of three
rebelions, we are the offspring of two rebelons,
really speaking like the Gar OF Russia, the Sultan
of Turkey, or Louis XIV himself, of the dreadful
crime and guilt OF rebellion
There, by one of your own Representatives,
in your own Legislature, and there out of tAe
mouth of minister of Great Britain, and be-
fore the British people, this rebellion with
which you are now struggling is Gkened to
that in which your forefathers engaged, and
that in which their forefathers engaged
against Charles | and James Ii.
THE SHAREHOLDERS REBELLION CoNTRAsTED WITH
OTHER REBELLI0NS.
Sir what was the rebellion in which those
men engaged to depose Charles Against
what authority or government did they rebel :?
The authority of the king, who claimed to
govern, not by the election of his Subjects
not by their choice and selection, but by
divine right and by the accident Of birth, and
who claimed for the measure of his authority
what? The right to appoint himself, be
did, members of one House of the laW-making
department of his Government; the right to
appoint every judge; the right to appoint
every administrative and executive officer
If the members of his Parliament disaffected
him. he dismissed them at his pleasure. He
convened them only when he wanted them.
He kept them no longer together than they
would survive his purposes. When mem
Der Of the House of Lords displeased him, he
refused to summon him to his seat. He de-
oared war when he chose to make war; The
fact of var he made the pretext for levying
taxes which his Parliament had denied to him;
and when, against all these assertions of
power, one of his own subjects appealed to
the courts to redress a wrong committed by
the Crown, or by the agents of the Crown,
he dismissed judges who would not agree to
decide in his favor, and he appointed judges
who would agree to decide in his favor.
1t was against such authority in such lands
that that rebellion was waged; and ycG they
did not resort to that rebellion until they had
tried every means to avoid it, by appeals to
Parliament, by appeals to courts, by appeals
to statutes, by appeals to reason. For TWEEN
ty years and more, the people of Great Brit
ain struggled by every possible peaceful
means to prevent the exercise OF these pre-
negatives, and to repress the wrongs that
we're occaslOned through their exercise, be-
fore they resorted to force.
Against what did your own forefathers re-
bel-your fathers and mine-whom a degen-
crate Representative in Congress ikened to
the men who have made this rebellion? Let
them speak for themselves. l am not assert
ing any more than did Earl Russell that all
rebellion is guilty. know it is not. 1 know
that revolution has been employed as an IN
strument ofreform. | know it has often been
so employed. know that in some cases it is
necessary to be employed. I regard it my
self as that sort of volcanic agency, so to
sneak by which the under-layers in the social
qualification are upheaved into the light OF
liberty and equality. But, sir, everybody
must concede, what all philosophy and all ex-
narience teach, that revolution, rebellion,
war are the most frightful remedies that
we're ever employed or can be employed, and
therefore they should be applied only to the
nost desnerate diseases. But when PEG,
pie are subjected to wrong which they can
bot andure, and wrong which they cannot
norrect nv any other fundamentally or any
Cher means, undoubtedly rebellion may be
,,,,douhtad1y rebellion ShOulf