The Cleveland leader. [volume] (Cleveland [Ohio]) 1865-1865, 1865-07-20

the government under which tnoy are
naturally to live? Can the Union men Of
this nation be SO ungenerous and so unjust
as to permit tbisP If they an, ought they
to expect swift retribution from Him
whose eye never fails to mark the oPpres-
sion of the poor and whose ear was never
shut TO the wall of the dOwntrodden?
But it will be ssked, plsusibly, indeed,
but fallsciOusly, How can we have q re-
stored Union without forbearsnce, forgive
ness, fraternity? How can the Southern
people be brought back into the Union
without giving them their full rights as
States?
proved, then recorded. Let slavery be not
only slam, but buried past the hope or pos
sibility of resurrection, before the Federal
arm shall relax its military grasp upon
those territories.
The great law Of self-preservstion made
the late terrible war a necessity to the Fed
eral Government; the same great law makes
it u national wisdom and duty to adjust
the political power of those States so as to
lensure both their own future peace and
that of this nation for generations to come.
For these ends, let reconstruction move
sIoyIv. Let the spirit and temper of the
late rebels be proved by the lapse OF time
and the logic of events. Let ps at least
take not to give them snd their pOliti-
cal friendsin the old free States the control
of the government till we have adequate
assurance that they will use it for liberty
and not for slavery f; for righteousness and
not for oppression for peace and not for
war and revolution. Above all, let the col
ored race be brought up under the protec-
ton of our national government to q status
of safety, ~self-support and progress. Make
them equal before the law to the white race.
=. n zT-,E.-1 F-,,.ESg -, gI.oo.,o
around as G0hits men.
This, and nothing short of this, will en-
| sure them their personal, insliensble rights
of life, libsrty and the pursuit of happi-
ness, Admitted TO the polls, they become
a mower to be respected and even courted
nv the politicians. Excluded, they must
remain q helpless, unprotected class, cruelty
wrouged and necessarily imperilling the
peace Of the nation.
These views of our national policy and
true wisdom must commend themselves to
the good sense of the loyal people Of this
nation. The general conviction will he,
that they are sound and right. Yet many
| NAV ask, How shall they be carried into
| effectf How cal the Union be re-compact-
| ed, and q state of peace and harmony be
reached except by admitting the existence
and validity of those State governments,
and allowing them to settle the question OF
franchise for themselYes2
Again, we answer, thay forced this Fed
eraI Union to q war for its own integrity,
indeed for its very existence. Thai rebel
lion justified the Federal Government in
abolishing slavery. It was done simply and
only by the wal power in other words,
under that law of self preservation, higher
thar all other laws and above all constitu-
tions, which compel men to extreme meas
ures to avert extreme perils. The same law
demands that the nation shall not throw
away in q breath all it has gained by the
sacrl fee of a half million of lives and 1900
millions of treasure.
The same necessity which demanded
emancipation demands now that slavery be
rooted up, expelled from the body polite o.
both those old slave States and the Federal
Government, and that the State laws under
which it has hOurished arc not only declar.
ed, but made, null and void; and above all
that the race long crushed under its iron
heels shall be uplifted, put in safety and
clothed with the powers and functions o.
citizens, for their self-protectiOn under q 70.
publican government.
The Executive has taken the responsible
ity, most wisely, of excluding certain mel
in those States from holding Office and from
casting votes. Let him use the same pow
or to the full extent which the pnblic safe
W u6Hlhuubs IL La uOb OHly bu6 IlRuk "
do 80, but he is bound to do so by that re
r~~=sihiljty which rests on him to see tina
the RepuDll0 suHeT5 AZ ---:a-a. fatal detri
ment.
We must also invoke the power of Con
gress when it cOnYenes. The people lool
to the American Congress as their own re
representatives. and as guardians of the publi
veal. The question Of admission to seats il
their own body comes constitutionally be
| .E,ra Ahaunaa1uau fnr Aan1aS0n Morao,ro-
the Constitution binds them TO secure +
every State a thoroughly republican form
of government. The public welfare will
demand of them that they neither commit
nor tolerate nu act 80 slicidalt to the nation
life as to admit 70 full power in Congress
boay of States in which by their W Con
stitutions snd laws, such discrimination j
made at the polls as will exclude all o
nearly all the proved loyal citizens, an,
lodge all political power with those VIII
have given overwhelming evidence Of dis
loyalty and treason.
kIt will be said that these ~resOniDgs an
an~ticipations of evil assume that the spiri
of slavery still lives. They do, indeed; an
nothing can be more true. This is tn
very truth which, in our naturally ferven
desire for peace and re union, we are over
looking. To overlook it would be most pslpa
BILE folly, and will naturally let in a mos
ruinous policy. The war through whicl
we have passed was, on the rebel side, moi
terribly earnest, The whole soul Of III
slavebolding Oligarchy was in it. Let u
not hatter ourselves that this spirit hs
gone out, exercised and dead, to return n
more,
No measure of public policy should b
adopted on the basis of this assumption
Rather let us learn wisdom by the bite
experiences of the conflict that is to liv
forever in our history; that lives in tn
sorrows of many thousand stricken hearts
and will return again to curse US and on
children if we fail TO study, note, and ex
terminate its causes, and if We fail to re
construct our Federal Union and rest ou
peace policy upon the foundations of equsl
impartial justice to the long enslsved rae
and of eternal antagonism to American
slavery.
The address was received with great f.
vor, adopted without q dissenting voice an,
with enthusiasm, and ordered TO be printed
At this point Father Keep read the reso
luton appended, which received the mos
emphatic endorsement
ResoEued, That we demand equal suffrsge
not simply because, like the negroes muskei
it is now needed to save the freshly imperill
ed nation, but because Justice, whose eye
are baudsged so that she may never know
the difference between the white man an
the b ack, holds an even scale in her hand
WhereWith she weighs the right of one citi
zen by the exact weight of every other.
There being loud and prolonged calls 70
j. NJ. Langston, Esq, that gentleman too
the stand, and delivered one of the ableE
and most spirited speeches we have ye
heard. He criticised very severely any en-
all Efforts looking toward negro e~nfrsnchise
ment in the late Slave States, while tn
work was not also prosecuted in the intOl
Grant Northern States =He declared "a
colored people, Northand South, identified
that the interest of those of one section wa
that of those of the other ; that if the ne
groes, South, should be armed now with tn
ballot, as they have been with the bayonei
SO should also be the colored people of tn
North. He dwelt upon this point at length
aud then passed on to consider the reason
why the negroes should be ~enfraDchised
They had fought to secure the original in
dependence of the country they had gal
lantly fought in the war of 1872 they hay
sacrificed themselves on the thousand bat