Daily union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1865-1866, 1865-12-20
UNI0N&AMERICAN
SPIRIT OF THE RADICAL PRESS

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SPIRIT OF THE RADICAL PRESS
We published on yesterday an article from
the New York Times, upon the subject of re-
construction, and the right of the Southern
States to representation in Congress. The
following from the Chicago Times, the leading
radical journal of that section, is tone and
temper very different We give it that our
readers may better understand the different
shades of opinion that are held at the pres
ent time toward the Presidents policy of re-
construction within the Republican ranks:
Reconstruction.
The appointment of a Joint Committee of
the two Houses of Congress on Reconstruc-
ton, and the reference to such committee of
the credentials of the members elect from
Tennessee, indicate that the American people
as represented in Congress, intend to exert
their proper influence over the whole subject
of reconstruction. Tennessee has more plaus-
ible claims for immediate admission than any
other State In the Eastern part of the State
the majority of the white population were
| loyal to the Union throughout the war That
| portion of the State has elected members to
| Congress who personally would make worthy
andsrespectable representatives. In the di-
vided condition of the State during the war its
white population rendered some support to
the Union, though a great deal more to the
rebellion. The present effort at recon-
struction was begun under the 'Governorship
| of Andrew johnson, and The Presidents
| desire that the Government of that State
shall be held to be already fully recon-
| structed, and that its representatives shall
be admitted, is well known. Yet by an en-
phatic vote, including all the Republicans
| in the Senate, except Cowan, Dixon, and
| Doolittle, and by the unanimous vote of the
Republican majority in the House, with
only dissenting squeak from Mr. Ray
mond, Congress passed the Tennessee ere
dentials to the same committee which will
receive those from the other States the |
| Joint Committee on Reconstruction. All |
this is an emphatic contradiction of the |
Presidents statement in his message that |
it now only remains for the seeded States, |
having voted for the Constitutional Amend |
ment, to resume their places in the Union, |
while Congress will judge merely of the !
regularity of their certificates of action.
This attitude Of Congress is sound. Il rep
resents the loyal people of this country ex-
actly 1t will afford Congress time to ma
ture its own plan of reconstruction, and to
come forward in solid phalanx in favor of
policy which shall represent the interests
of the whole people of the South, and of the
country, and not merely of the late rebels
Something more than mere delay in the
business of reconstruction is necessary on the
part of Congress. Their course will fail to
satisfy the country if it tends merely to stave
off the issue. What justice and statesman
ship demand, what the late elections demon
strate that the people demand, is not so much
a postponement of reconstruction for its own
sake, as that subversion and overthrow of
the Presidents partial and one-sided mode of
reconstruction in reference to the voting
basis, which restores rebels to power through
out the South and dooms whole race to
peonage or bondage, until wiser councils or
bloody revolution shall wrest from their
oppressOrs their fair share of political rights. \
Every Republican victory at the last election
is verdict in flavor of extending the suf-
frage in some form to some portions of the
four millions, who embrace a third of the
population and nineteen-twentieths of the in
dustry, morality, loyalty and republicanism
of the Southern people.
In this matter President JOhnsons point
of departure was wrong and every step he
has since taken has only made the wrong
more manifest and glaring He assumes
that even in States where two-thirds of the
citizens are colored, they are to have no
rights except those which the political mi
nority choose to confer upon them. This is
an undemocratic blunder and will convert
the South into another Jamaica, a scene of
slow torture for the black man and of con-
tinued despotism and terror to the white.
1t will condemn the South to hopeless pow
erty, crime, and violence We do not ask
that any ignorant, depraved, pauper whether
black or white, shall vote. But we do ask :
that intelligent moral sdfsupporting men
of whatever color shall not be excluded by
law from any avenue to influence or useful
ness to which their abilities and the votes of !
their fellow-citizens would raise them. We
demand this in the name of the principles 7
of the Republican party and of the Declara-
ton of Independence. We ask it as the
proper fruit of the war; the completion of
the work of emancipation. We ask it in
the name of the martyred Lincoln, as he e1- {
pressed his convictions in his letter to Gov
Hahn and to Gen. Wadsworth.
To do this it will be the duty of Congress,
if need be, to join issue with any earthly F.
power that desires to make the issue, and try /,
the matter out as a question of power But
the end will never be attained if Congress
merely dallies with and postpones the Presi- ,
dents plan. Do Congress need further light !,
upon the question? Must more "black :
codes " be passed, in all their hideous atroc-
ity, more freedmen massacred, more rebels
elected to Office at the South? Must more
legislatures grant bounties to rebel troops a
while refusing them to loyal soldiers Must = !,
more petitions be sent up for the lives of Iv- !
ing traitors, more church prayers refused !,
even to the President who champions their !,
equality Must more honors be tender
ed to living rebels, or more monuments .
erected to dead ones? Must more ar
rogance be displayed by the naughty rebel >
minority in South Carolina and Mississippiin !,
overriding the rights of the loyal majority =
md disfranchising them utterly in the courts I
md at the ballot box, except where the Presi- =
lential edict,' behind which glitters the {
memory of million of bayonets, compels '
,ome reluctant compliance with justice? If q
Congress desire more of all this, let them =
wait; but while they wait events will crowd =
past them, and the opportunity for justice Y
without revolution will be gone. Our thir- "
y-seven States will once more Join hands y
1ver the crater of our volcano and await its q
next explosion. u
If Congress is so profoundly pervaded by 7
IN absenceo of independence vigor and states '.
as to write itself down as the mere >
recorder of the precedences of the executive, u
hen it will allow reconstruction to proceed
IN the basis already tried and found want
ng If not, and we believe it will not it
will take new point of departure, which d
hall be in harmony with the genius of Re P
publican institutions. 1t will do this by 81
in its joint committee on recon- o
truction, general enabling act for those a
districts Of the South in which State govern II
nents formerly existed, whereby they shall 2,
DC constitutionally governed so long U
Is they remaiu in a territorial condi- ?
ion, by a Governor lawfully appointed u
'y the President, and confirmed by U
he Senate, and by Territorial Legislature y
elected by such portion of the population as ?
he enabling act shall permit to vote. The Il
majority of all the people of the South and : ),
is entire loyal and anti-slavery population 4
avor this course to-day. Heretofore the u
President has treated the question of recon- y
truction as a military one, over which he G.
llone, as Commander-in-Chief of the Army o
ind Navy, had jurisdiction, and to which the