The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1865-12-21
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WEST VA THURsD4YMORNING DECEMBER 2l 1865

leave the people of such districts with
ont ntation; butwould it not be
agfeater hardship to allow them to be-
lieve that their rebellion was in fact
creditable, by admitting the men who
led them into battle to seats in the Com
Union?} This, in tact, would be to make
loyalty Infamous instead of treason.n
Mr..Raymond, of the New York Times,
republican leader in the House, says
in significant article in his paper: ~
"The true policy is to expedite rather
than delay the readmission of the
southern grepresentatiyes andsenators.
1t is neither right nor safe for any part
of the country to legislate for another
part of the country, without giving it
any voice in that legislation. The great
effort of true craftsmanship now must
be to animate the South with a new
life which shall be thoroughly identified
with the national life, and have COM
North and the West. Bnt this will be
morally impossible, il determinations
are to be kept up against the South, es-
pecially the EXTREMIST of all discrimi-
nations of not allowing 1t representa-
ton, and making It subject to laws in
the framing of which it has had no
part. That viii be sure to beget a sense
result would inevitably be the intensest
hatred, on the part of the southern
people, of those they deemed their op-
preSsofs. TO shut the eyes to this GER
tainty is to be blind to American ma
ture. Whatever the motives, the act is
one of infatuation. a- r.
"We have not n doubt that
the predominant feeling in the northern
heart to-day, toward the South, is a
yearntng for complete reconciliation
1t would bea blessed influence uponthe
southern people if they could truly
know this. But they cannot know il,
except through the words and actions
of northern. congressman. Let those
representatives look we'll to it that they
Onot give occasion for a amisconception
Ofthg real spirit of the North. They
cannot long continue to keep the gates
of the Capitol barred against all south
ern representation without producing
upon the southern mind "a most mis-
chievOus impression, that the North
means not to be recOnciled, but to DOM
ineer and degrade. What harm can
southern representation do? Even sup
posing the worst; that it would be dis
affected and factiOus, it would still form
but weak minority in either House |;
and even II it mnde an alliance with ali
the democratic strength, the combined
force would still be less than two-fifths
of either body. The thirty-ninth Con-
gress, upon which devolves the compile
ton of this work of reconstruction, has
a magnificent Union strength, which no
possible combination of malign ele-
ments can hinder from working its own
high will. Let IL trust to that strength,
and be fearlessly generous. Let it adj
nit, Mt an early day, into its bosom, all
the truly accredited representatives of
the southern people, so that itshall have
every facility to legislate intelligently
and justly for the South, as well as for
every other part of the land. This is
what is imperatively demanded by the
spirit of national concord, and by every
practical interest of the Union. Nospec-
ulative dogma, or old dresentment,o ought
to stand in the way of it."