Gold Hill daily news. [volume] (Gold Hill, N.T. [Nev.]) 1863-1882, 1865-03-20


was a mere chattel, in common with the
hog and the horse. In other States, non.i-
nally free, he was, and still is, Pariah, a
banned wretch, occupying an anomalous
medium somewhere between the man and
the brute; paying his taxes; performing
his share in the support and maintainence
Of the Government; held to strict account
ability 10 laws which he had no share
in framing, in courts where his voice could
not be heard. In some /" free States he
is forbidden to set his foot under penalty
of being sold into servitude. In few,
and these the only really free States, he Is
. citizen, and such States have ever been
by-word and scothng with their sisters
in the Republic. Such, from the founda-
ton of our Government up to the hour of
the rebellion, had been the power OF the
slave institution, and such had been the
status Of millions of people native to the
soil and we admit having done our share
in our own sphere, towards the perpetual
ton of that institution, and to keep the
negro in the condition in which our ad-
vent found him. 1t is in. this that the
Southern traitors have succeeded in Great
ing revolution" although nothing
could have been further from their expec-
tations, nor more opposite to their incli-
nations. 1t is equally wonderful to mark
the extent of this revolution in popular
sentiment, and the almost incredible meta
morphosis which has taken place in the
views Of statesmen who were once the
staunchest supporters of the institution Of
slavery.
We are led to the writing of this article
by reading the late speech of Judge Kelley,
of Philadelphia, delivered in the House of
Representatives, on the Bill to guaranty
to certain States, whose governments have
been oyerthrown, Republican form of
Government" The House having under
consideration the bill ito guaranty to
certain States whose governments have
been usurped or overthrown Republican
form of government" Mr.. Kelley moved
to amend the bill by inserting after the
words "to enroll all the white male citi-
zens of the United States" the words
and all other male citizens of the United
States who may be able to read the Con-
stitution thereof" Judge Kelley will be
recollected as having been, before the war,
one of the staunchest adherents of the
pro-slavery party. In opening his speech
he accounts for his detection from that
party, in these words:
Mr.. SPEAKER: These are indeed terrible
| times for tiTnid people. Use and wont no
! longer serve US. The guns traitorously fired
upon Fort Sumter threw US all out Of the
well-beaten rutS Of habit, and as the war pro-
crosses men find themselves less and less
able to express their political views by nam
| ing party or uttering its shibboleth. 1t IS
/ no longer safe for any of us to wait till the
election comes and accept the platform and
tickets presented by party. We may have
| served in its ranks for lifetime and find at
last-costly and painful experience being our
guide-that to obtain the ends we had III
| view we should have acted independently OF,
! and in opposition to it and its leaders. In
/ seasons like this, an age on ages telling, the
| feeblest man in whom there is faith tx
honesty is made to feel that he is not quite
powerless, that duty is laid on him too, and
that the force that is in him ought to be ex-
pressed in accordance with his own convic-
tions and in 4 way to promote some end seen
or hoped for.
The questions with which we have to deal,
the grave doubts that confound US, the diff
culties that environ US, the results our action
will produce, fraught with veal or woe to
centuries and constantly-increasipg millions,
are such as have rarely been con6ded to a
generation. But happily We are not without
guidance. Our situation, though novel, does
not necessarily cast US upon the field Of mere
experiment. True, we have not specific pre-
cedents which We may safely follow; but the
founders Of our Government gave US, in a
few brief sentences, laws by which we may
extricate our generation and country from
the horrors that involve them, and secure
peace broad as our country, enduring as its
history, and benehcent as right and justice
Having thus struck his colors, and
abandoned his allegiance to the slavery
interest, the Judge turns his guns upon
the institution and proceeds to demolish
it into a mass of ruins. He regards the
slave power as at present trampled under
foot, and he proposes, by extending the
elective franchise to the emancipated slave.
to crush it in the dust and keep it there
forever. He says:
| am, Mr.. Speaker, under but one specific
/ pledge to my constituents other than that
"nlch promised to vote away the last dollar
! from each mans Golfer and the last able
bodied son from his hearthside, if they should
! be needed for the etfectual suppression of the
/ rebellion. and that is, that will in their be-
| half consent 10 no proposed system of recon-
struction which shall place the loyal men of
the insurrectionary district under the un.
bridled control Of the wicked and heartless
traitors who have involved US in this war, and
! illustrated their barbarity by the fiendish
cruelties they have practiced on their loyal
| neighbors, negro soldiers and unhappy pris-
! oners of war and to that pledge, God help
ing me, mean to prove faithful. The future
peace and prosperity of the country demand
this much at our hands. The logic Of our in
situations, the principles Of the men who
achieved our independence and who framed
those institutions, alike impel Us to this
course, as necessary as it will be wise and
just.
To the futuro of South Carolina. the