Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1865-09-02
QD9Io Statesrr';a)1ntt,. n,
- 80.
TEIE REBELLION.
WHERE THE GUILT LIES.
From a Speech of Hon. Montgomery
Blair, Delivered at atClarksville, r,
Howard County, Maryland,
grnH' ON August 2G, 1865. '.Hg
CONTINUED

' ".. fill-. ..'- ..tr.
' ..' [CoNTINUED.l
Irevert to these facts to prove that the
Governmental of the United States-the great
functionaries entrusted with the admins
tration-are responsible for the subiugation
of the Southern people to the usurpation of
The conspirators who plotted secession in
the halls of Congress and in the caucusses
they held in the Capitol. 1t was here, from
year to year, that the scheme was plotted
and the missives and emissaries were sent
that got UP the secret societies, that organ
lied the military force under the Knights
of the Golden Circle, and provided arms
from the arsenals of the Union. The Fed
eral Government, which, from the time that
Jeff. Davis was Secretary of War, was in
the hands of men secretly conspiring
against the liberties of the North and South,
was constantly used to give resurrection to
the rebellion which General jackson had
suppressed. .,.. ... -. ..,... q, -
The scheme for the dissolution of the
Union had been for more than thirty years
broodlhg in Washington. 1t had its origin
with the slaveholding autocrats, sickened
with the inferiority to which their section
and themselves were doomed by the SER
vile institution, which inflamed at once their
vanity and ambition. The politicians who
gathered at Washington as the representa-
tives of this class, constituted, as they
thought, an order of nobility destined to
put down the popular Government which
subjected them to an irksome dependence
on the people. 1t was this Congress
gentility from the South, flushed with
the triumph OF their iutrigues in
bringing the Government under their con-
troll, that contrived, organized and direct
o6 tha nopcniranu ikn oil cpironinc
which have led to civil wars, it was born
and bred in the capital. Rome, London,
Paris through successive ages, have been
the centers where the plots were laid which
on explosion, shook not only their home
Government, but those of foreign nations
The great body of the people of the South
had no hand in the concoction of the plot
which has actually conyulsed this country
They are as innocent as the. people of the
North, yet in every shapefn which wretch
edness can be visited, the South has been
the victim. Itwas the highest constitutions
al duty of the Government of the United
States to have warded off the blow which
has prostrated this region. The arm was
raised to strike in its very presence. ~
o The Premier of the, incoming Admins
tration says, at this juncture, go ahead;
we will confront your revolutionary move
ments with concession, violence with con-
ciliation and the right hand of fellowship
The tall of Sumter Immediately followed
this, the attempt to succOr it being turned
aside by the hand of the Premier, who had
engaged that it should fall. What were the
people of the South to infer from this? r
An immense majority, some sixty OF
seventy thousand, of the people of Virgins
| had given their voices for the Government
| of their fathers. In those States further
| Il Al. y,s, IS a.
| Circle exhibited all their secretly armed
police to dragoon and drag the people to
| vote to throw off the Union, and substitute
the Confederacy, amajOrity of voters could
4 nowhere be brought to sanction it. But
when Sumter fell what could individuals
expect who were everywhere under the
heels of the usurpers? Would the nations
Government defend them in any loyal
effort? Mr.. Buchanan the head ofIhe
Government, said ''it had no righttO do it,
and Mr.. Seward, the Premier. of the new
Administration, had said, we will not sue
cor nor defend even the strongholds o.
vernment-strongholds built to keep re-
bellion9 and -usurpation in check. What
could loyal men do under such circnm-
stances but submit? ''' .,''. ''''''
: They were pressed Into the army bycon-
scription. II, they fled from their homes
and hid in the morasses to escape, they were
hunted down by blood-hounds and put in
the front of battle with the regulars of the
Golden Circle in their rear. The property
Of everybody was prey, and those only
who professed the utmost zeal to the mill
tary power could hope to have any share ir
what belonged to them. ..sr. ui i-.f....
Is it not monstrous that our Government
should hold people, put in this predica-
rnent, If we may not say by its own acts
yetcertainly by its supineness and acqui.
escence, responsible for the crimes OF al
usurpation thus put over them? .,-r.,.
And yet the Hon. Thaddeus Stevens take
this stand for the Government of the Unit
ed States in the resolutions which he re
Gently got up Convention to pass at Har
risburg. "a ~. pv. .ga t'en. ..
According to the programme of the Ste
vens resolutions, there are no loyalmen IL
the South but the enfranchised blacks; tn
white man who succumbed to the usurpa
tiOn and obeyed it's behests-and this ever,
man was compelled to do-is disfranchiset
as disloyal. In logical sequence from thi
state of facts, the national Legislature is {,
absorb all legislation, State and national
over the whole South. 1t is to assume alb
solute power over everything south of Ma
son and Rixonls line-and how is it to b
| eAeTClSeuI
Mr.. Stevens, forgetting that our Govern
ment was bound by the Constitution Il
protect the people of every State from al
domestic violence and iusurpatioh, as wei
as foreign invasion, and in failing to do
might be Justly held to indemnify the 10y
al people who have suffered by the rebel
lion, has the hardihood to declare In hi
resolutions that the people of the South, e
nldsse, confounding the innocent with tn
guilty, are bound, out of their substance, T.
pay the whole national debt incurred b,
the war. This is somewhat like tying
millstone round the neck of every man ii
the community and throwing him into th
ocean. It'certainly overwhelms him in
flood from which he can hardly swim ou
with such a weight. 'ul vi A!'a
| But. this, it may be said, is only alife
long incumbrance of generations, which
making the poor white posterity who hav
4 lived in slave States expiate as the children
the sins Of their forefathers. But lest som
H men who have considerable substance II