American citizen. [volume] (Butler, Butler County, Pa.) 1863-1872, 1865-12-06
3.
Address Of Schuyler Colfax.
The true Reconstruction Policy,
POSITION OF THE PRESIDENT

ton on Saturday evening, ana IN rePiy u
the compliment made the following
speech:
My FRIENDS thank you for the
pleasant serenade with which you well
8 come me on my return to the sphere Of
.public duty, Since l left here l have
travelled many thousands of miles over
the plains and mountains of the Pacific
slope, and up that coast to the British
Possessions, in the extreme th-West;
but will not detain you with any aliu'
s;ons TO the scenery or incidents OF my
journey, as 1 have already promised to
sneak in regard to them in this city next
month. My thoughts more natu-
rally turn this evening to the auspicious
condition of our country now as compar-
ed with the closing of the lass Congress
Then hostile flag waved over cities ana
forts and camps and regiments, and we
svant home in March to assist in raising
the troops called for by the President
Now there is peace over all the land, and
the flag of the Republic waves unques-
.tioned over every acre Of our national
do main. [Cheers.1 We never knew the
yalue of our institutions until the hour
of their peril. five had failed, there
would have been no resurrection from
the tomb of nation. But, thanks to our
heroic defenders, no Gibbon will write
the history of Americas decline and fall.
rCheers.1 l shall hail the day when all
the States shall revolve in their apPropri-
ate orbits around the central Government,
and when We can behold them "distlnct
as the billows, but one as the sea" But
we cannot forget that history teaches us
that it was eight years after the surren-
der of Yorktown in the Revolutionary
War, though our fathers were OF one
mind as to its necessity, before the Con-
stitution was adopted and the Union thus
established. 1t is auspicious that the
ablest Congress ! have seen during my
knowledge of puf.c affairs, meets next
month. to settle the momentous ques-
tions which will be brought before it
1t will not be governed by any spirit OF
revenge, but solely by duty to the coun-
try. / have no right to anticipate its
action, nor do | bind myself to any in
flexible, unalterable policy. But these
ideas occur to me, and l speak of them
with the frankness with which we should
always express our views. Last March,
when Congress adjourned, the States late
ly in rebellion were represented in a hos
tile Congress and Cabinet, devising ways
and means for the destruction of this
country. 1t may not be generally known
but it has been repeated to me, on the
testimony of members of the so-called
Confederate Congress, that Gen. Lee, the
military head of the Rebellion, declared
last February, in his official character,
that the contest was utterly hopeless, but
that their Congress and Cabinet determi-
nod to continue the struggle, and 20
900 men fell after that time on both sides
in the battles around Petersburg, Rich
mond and elsewhere. Since the adjourn
ment of the United States Congress,
not single rebellious State voluntarily
surrendered, not an army laid down its
weapons, not regiment abandoned their
falling cause; but the Union armies con-
quered peace, not by compromise or
voluntary submission, but by the force of
arms. Some of these members of the
so-called Confederate Congress, who at
our adjournment last March were strug-
ling to blot this nation from the map of
the world, propose, understand, to en-
ter Congress on the opening day Of its
session next month, AMI resume their
former business of governing the coun-
try they struggled SO earnestly to ruin
They say they have lost no rights. 1t
seems as if the burning of the ships of
our commerce on the ocean, starving our
prisoners on the land, and raising armies
to destroy the nation, would impair some
of these rights until their new govern
ments were recognized by Congress,
ICheers. The Constitution, which see ms
formed for every emergency, gives to each
House the exclusive right to judge of
the qualifications of the election returns
of its members, and / apprehend they
will exercise that right. Congress hav-
ing passed no law on Reconstruction,
President johnson prescribed certain ac-
4ion for these States, which he deemed
indispensable to their restoration to their
former relations to the Government.
think this eminently wise and patriotic.
He declared, first, that their Conventions
should declare the various ordinance Of
Secession null and void-not, as some
have done, merely repeating them-but
absolutely without any force and effect.
Second, that their Legislatures should