The Portland daily press., 1865-10-16

From all that have learned from Washing
ton and other sources, there is to be in Con-
gress the most vehement and radically serious
debate that the country has ever known, over
this question of reconstruction. ,-Now-I want
to shew, if can, that there is no reason, ex-
cept their own timidity and want OF yieor,
why our senators and representatives shouud
not le3islate for the common good. fou laugh
Let us see. hold this, that Congress Is pound
to consider first of all and beyond all, not
merely the immediate ease and safety of the
nation, but its enduring safety and progress,
and in especial, having the power, as contend
If has IT is its most solemn duty, which it can
no. disregard without infamy, to lay founda-
tion broad and deep for the solid and pcrna-
nent good of the States lately in rebellion
desire to see the time when this great ard in
tegral portion OF the republic, shall be as Free
happy and prosperous as any other part of it (;
when we shall have indeed a Union; when
our motto shall be what it was intended to be,
uauns, and not as it has been. for the last forty
years, duo pLuwibas, and when the mischiev-
GUS words and phrases, North and South, North
ern and Southern rights, Northern and South
ern institutions hitherto utterly hostile to the
constitution and so productive ofevil, shall be
known no more. hold it, therefore, to be the
first duty of Congress, under regard to the COM
mon veal with far reaching foresight to provide
for the best and lasting interests of the States
lately in rebellion. But it will be asked, why
these platitudes? Who doubts that Congress
is ready to do it, Perhaps so. But say bod
ly that if the statesmen and politicians who
compose it, are not men of larger views and
more foresight then their predecessors before
the war, they will not do it. 1 judge from the
past. Is it not a fact that in regard to the
question of questions, for forty years before
The war the statesmen of the free-States fail
ed, and were uniformly driven to the wall
Did they not even become objects of contempt
to southern statesmen? How elsedid it hap
pen that South Carolinian could stand up in
the Senate, and confronting representatives Of
part of the country immeasurably superior
in all that constitutes civil greatness with
matchless impudence, with an insolencei wei
nigh sublime, ask, s'You say that we have rul-
ed you long. Haze zoe not ruled .you acell?"
Hadour senators been what they should have
been, would mortal man have dared to make
a speech like that in such place? Have we
not virtually confessed again and again the in
feriority of our own to southern statesmen
! When southern men demanded their rights,
did we not reply, shave you not always
had far more than your share of the most inn
portant Offices in the nation, have you not die
tated its policy2" What confession this |
| But in what sense were our statesmen inferior
to southern statesmen? In talent? No. In
general and profound knowledge OF the world
and its history? In these respects they were
far superior. What thenp In foresight. Why
in foresight? Because the people would not
allow them to be men of foresight. To be a
man of sagacity SO far as the great underlying
question of slavery was concerned, was for a
long time almost to be Infamous. What was
virtually the common talk in the street and
everywhere else? II won't hear @word of it.
sir. You are fire-brand, sir. You are keeping
the whole country in hot water all the time
sir We can't make money OF DO anything
else, and all of you, sir. Let slavery alone, sir
1t will all come right of itself, sir.n AS were
the people so were the statesmen. Instead OF
probing the slavery, instead of asking what
it's tendency was, what its future, they strove
to ignore it, to Danish it utterly from the coun-
ellis of the nation, and as far as lay in their
power, to crush out forever all discussion upon
it. They more than once congratulated
their country that it was finally laid in its
tomb. But perhaps, the most extraordinary
evidence of want of foresight was in the
adoption of the system of compromises So
called, by which they fondly thought they
could eliminate the disturbing element, but in
which they were uniformly tricked and out
witted. They did not see that they were run
ming into trap, and were taking the readiest
means to give the oligarchy a prestige and a
status. Between whom were these compro-
misses made? Between the South and the
North, powers utterly unknown to the Con-
stitution. Whatwas this but virtual &C
knowledgement that there were such powers
What was it but virtually saying that our mot
to was pluribus duo. And what were these
compromises then, but treaties on the floor oil
Congress, between two hostile powers, and a
virtual dissolution of the Union Such were
the deplorable consequences of the want Of
foresight in our statesman, and what penalty
the people have at length suffered tor theil
persistent ignoring of the great question lei
the war answer.
Now how was it with Southern statesmen Z
Always watchfulness, always foresight, always
seeming danger from afar, no ignoring great
issues, no shutting of eyes with them. Look
at the singular instances of this in South Car
DINA, the Mephistophiles and master-spirit OIL
the rebellion. Why was she SO vehement in
demanding, and urging her sisters to demand
the extension of slavery into the territories p
Had she any direct immediate interest in thatf
On the contrary it was apparently the most
suicidal policy she could adopt because it might
increase enormously the price of slaves. He,
true policy manifestly was the re-opening Of
the slave trade. 1t was the sIavc-breeders on
ly who could profit by it. Gov. Wise said that
| if California had been slave state every able
bodied slave in Virginia would have been
worth five thousand dollars. Mol South Caro-
lima, looking far ahead, wanted power, especial
ly if the Union should be dissolved. And what
do the most sagacions southern Shareholders
now confess was one of the most potent caus-
es of the rebellion? That they had been OPP
pressed? That the free states were not sincere
in their determination not to interfere with
slavery in the states? Mol But because they
foresaw that the anti-slavery spirit was gather
ing head, and at time not far distant, back
edby the civilized world, must inevitably crush
eVery thing in its path, and therefore it be-
nooFeu them to escape in time. Would that
ouu own statesmen had had as much foresight
- 'iie interests of freedom as they had in the