Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1865-12-13
Will the President stand tby She
Uoctrlme of his Message?


Will the PreSideut stand tby Iho
DOctrlne of his NHessageT
"Will President JOHNSON stand by the
views he has advanced in his MesSage'
touching reorganisationS ~ Is a question we
have been asked. We don't know whether
he viii; but, unauestionably, be Should
and Il becomes the people who want q
speedy and permanent pacification OF the
country to encourage him to do so. There
are circumstances which hope may at least
temporarily use forrest upon. 1t Is abso-
Iutely certain that the views of the Mes
sage in regard to reorganization do not
harmOnize with the views of the Radlcals'
Antipodes were never more widely apart'
Wherefore did the President avow the
views he has avowed In the Message II It IS
not his purpose to stand by themE lie
knew what the opinions of the leaders In
the party through whose machinery he
was lifted into the Presidential chair were
before he wrote his Message, and he knew
that those views were the reverse Of the
views he has avowed. What had he to
gain by promulgating views in opposition
to their views, II he did not intend to stand
by them? Those leaders have heretofore
been the representative men in their party
and their party was but recently triumph
ant everywhere. The perpetuity Of that
party can, doubtless, be assured by the ex7
clusion Of the lately insurgent states
from, a participation in the Federai
Government. If ambition to secure
an election to the Presidency three years
hence Is supposed to have influence over
his mind, the presumption Is that he would
have consulted the leaders In the Republic
can party, and made his action harmonize
with their views. Had he done this, he
would have made an argument tojustify
an exclusion of the Southern States from
any voice in the Federal Government
would have pronounced in favor Of gene
raj confscation and wholesale hanging or
expatriation. The Republican press and
orators had put themselves into an attitude
to sustain him in such a policy. With the
utmost unanimityl they had pronounced
his reorganization policy ian experiment.
and they have, for months, declared thai
sexperiment" a total failure, asserting
that the Southern people had acted In bad
faith-had abused the confidence of the
PresIdent-that at heart they were intense
ly and irreconcilably disloyal. In the face
of all this he prosecuted his work Of reor'
panization. TO conciliate the Southern
people, he used the pardoning power liber'
ally, and to satisfy the people at the North
he asked the Southern people to adopt the
Constitutional Amendment abolishing
slavery. Instead of admitting his work
to have been an abortive experiment
he assumes that it has worked admir-
ably. He don't abandon 1t to the
tender mercies of this Congress. He tells
Congress that when the Southern States
shall have adopted the Constitutional
amendment abolishing slavery, that Is all
then have any right to ask of them, and that
hey can then find no pretext for excluding
their Representatives; and in return for the
South doing this, he proposes to proclaim
general amnesty. He claims to hold in his
hands the pardoning power, and he pro-
poses to use it freely. He says, In direct
language, that the South must be coneili-
ated-that some inducement must be held
out to them to take their places in the
Union; and while he would Danish the
great cause of contention between sthe
North and the South, he would consign to
everlasting oblivion, by a general and
sweeping amnesty, that which has been
looked upon as the treason of the South
This is the drift Of his Message. '
It is not long since Mr.. MCCLURE, OF
Pennsylvania, told the country, after haV-
ing had an interview with the President,
that he (the President) was determined to
bring the Southern Representatives into
Congress. The President has argued those
States right up to the doors of both houses
of the National Legislature; and he is
standing by them there. Every daily press
10 Washington has taken up the champion
ship of the rights of those States to repre-
sentation. he has put into the hands OF
HENRY j. RAYMOND, after another conspic-
uous Republican member of Congress had
declined to accept the Office, the case of the
Tennessee Representatives for presentation
in Congress. Whether these circumstances
justify the opinion that the President will
stand by the doctrines Of his Message, on
most vital point, we leave the reader to
Judge for himself. 1t isyery clear, that II
the Southern Representatives were in Con-
gress they could not prevent the present
dominant party there from doing them In
jury by pernicious legislation. They
would have to rely upon the President,
who holds in his hands the veto power, to
protect them from outrage and wrong; and
on him now they can rely with as much
safety as ifthey were in Congress, undoubt-
edly. IN. ~. y 80 ,L..-,sJ'.a.I
-Ha rit NUarfetfa College.