Bradford reporter. [volume] (Towanda, Pa.) 1844-1884, 1865-05-11


courage and mcorruptible loyalty, which
+ must crown this generation of our people
with an impershable halo More unselfsh,
more patriotic commissioners never set out
in pursuit of a nations peace. Rest as
sured that the work which they are doing
will be well done. The peace which they
shall make will not be wretchcd, hollow
truce patched up between towards upon
one hand and traitors on the other, and
which, based ON the shattered fragments of
our dismembered country, would be broken
by the first whipped slave, who, escaping
from his master, should seek an asylum on
the soil of the free No, the peace they
are conquering will be negotiated on the
field of battle amid the triumph of our
arms, and with the stars and stripes stream
ing as a meteor over the heads of the COM
mlssloners. Such peace, and such only
will endure, because it will rest, not on the
| pertidlous promises Of red-handed conspir-
ators, but on the broken swords and dis
mantled fOrtresseS of the rebellion
Such peace as must follow from the
overthrow OF the military power Of the re-
bellion being secured, the obligation will
then press upon the nation, not only to
strike the last fetter from the limbs Of the
last slave, but also to see that guarantees
are created against the re establishment Of
slavery, through some cunningly-devised
system of tutelage, which, enforced by
State law, would entail upon this oppressed
race the same ignorance, and poverty and
social and political disfranchsement to
which they have heretofore been subjected
That the lingering sentiment Of disloyalty
a. Il Il
and to the treacherous and savage instincts
known to be inspired by this institution,
will, under a changed nomenclature seek
to accomplish this result, can scarcely be
doubted. Upon the solution of this mo-
mentous question of reconstruction, the
American people can well afford to wait,
and it is their duty to wait, lest by preci-
pitaton false steps should be taken which
could never be retrieved There should be
the utmost patience and circumspection, but
no haste. The country wants no more
traitors in the Capitol, and no more State
Governments into whose organizations the
spirit of treason has been breathed. If
loyal population cannot be found to put the
machinery of State government into opera
ton, then let us wait and see if the next
will not be a wiser and better generation.
In the meantime, let these former States be
subjected to military rule They constitute
part and parcel of the territory of the re-
public, and no apology is to be made for
holding and governing them as such. While
the ballot-box is the rightful source of au-
thority over loyal men, the Legitimate and
reliable foundation for the authority of the
Government over traitors, is the sword
With peace restored, and with the duties
it must impose performed, upward toward
Ii i'm who from the councils Of eternity,
hath declared that the laborer is worthy
of his hire" we may turn our eyes, and in
humble confidence invoke his blessing
because through carnage and sacrifices of
every kind we shall at last have had the
courage to do unto others as we would have
them do unto us, and shall have lifted up
to the high plane of our own christian civ
ilization and political rights millions of hui
man beings on whom the wrongs and sor-
rows of centuries have been pressing
Then, too, we will be able to look the ma
tions of the earth in the face without a
blush, because we shall have faithfully ac-
quilted ourselves of the solemn trust that
humanity has committed to our hands, and
by restoring the republic, in despite of all
the power and crimes Of the enemies with
in its bosom, we will have afforded dem
onstration of the capacity Of our race for
selfgovernment, transcending far in its i'm
pressiveness even that furnished by our fa-
Tiers in founding our Institutions On the
issue Of this struggle has been staked, as
verify believe, the concentrated fruits of
the battles for free governments in all ages
and climcs of the world. and we shall have
preserved them and this extended land
which, in it's soil and climate, in it's rivers
and lakes and mountain ranges, seems to
have been fashioned by the hand of the Al
mighty as temporal paradise for his pcO-
ple who shall proudly present to the ma
tions of the earth as no longer disfgured
and degraded by the mockery of institu
tions which, while claiming to be free, rest
their foundations on the enormitieS and
spoils of servitude. And then, both on
land and ocean, and upward to the sky, our
NATIONAL anthem will rise, mounting higher
and higher, and swelling grander and gran
der, and growing yet wilder and wilder in
its eXultant strains, because for the first
time in our national history. those strains
will be unmingled with the moan of human
bondage.
IhCh, my SOuHbl Will your
starry banner, undimmed and uniform, and
floating on every breeze from Maine to the
Gulf, and from the Atlantic to the Sierra
Nevada and the shores of the Pacific, the
republic, redeemed from this cankering
curse Of slavery and from the Vaccinations
Of its conspirators, regcneratcd and puri-
fed by the struggle through which it has
passed, and ennobled by sense of duty
performed will rebound from the blow it
has received, and will enter upon career
of prosperity, of freedom, of Irrational great
ness, so vast, so far reaching that in the
distant centuries to come, amid the gran
dure of its power and the unclouded splen-
doris of it's renown, even this mighty con-
tlict, with all its agonies and its triumphs,
may be forgotten or, if recalled, only as a
dim and almost unremembered event i'll the
sublime history of the past.
.rnry rnrrr1ootI,c, H cDTTHJD