The Highland weekly news. [volume] (Hillsborough [Hillsboro], Highland County, Ohio) 1853-1886, 1866-09-27
ADDRESS
NATIONAL UNION COMMITTEE
To the American People.
OF THE

lUuleuldl6 REPRESENTATIVES, III OOu-
gress and the President, who owes his
position to your votes, we are impelled
to ask your attention thereto, and to
suggest the duties to your country
which they render imperative.
We shall avoid the use of hard words.
OF these, there have already been too
many. And, that the matters in is
sue may be brought within the mar
rowest compass, let us first eliminate
from the controversy all that has al
ready been settled or has never been in
dispute.
The Republic has been desperately
assailed from within, and it's very ex-
istence seriously imperiled. Thirteen
States were claimed as having with
drawn from the Union, and were rep
resented for four years in hostile
Congress meeting at Richmond. Ten of
these States were, for time, wholly in
the power of a hostile confederacy the
other three partially so. The undoubt-
edly loyal States were repeatedly and
formidably invaded by rebel armies,
which were only expelled after obsti-
nate and bloody battles. Through
four years of arduOus, desperate civil
strife, the hosts of the rebel Confedera-
cy withstood those of the Union
Agents of that confederacy traversed
the civilized world, seeking allies in
their war against the Republic, and
melting the rapacious and unprinci-
pied to fit out armed corsairs to prey
upon her commerce. BY State author
ity, and in the perverted names of pa.
triotism and loyalty, hundreds O.
. thousands of our eOuntrymen were
conscripted into rebel armies and made
to fight desperately for our national
disruption and ruin. And though, by
the blessing of God and the valor and
constancy of our loyal people, the re-
bellion was finally and utterly crushed,
it did not succumb until it had caused
the destruction of more than half a
million of precious lives, not to speak
of property to the value of at least five
billions of dollars.
AT length the rebel armies surrend-
cred, and the rebel power utterly col
lapsed and vanished. What then?
The claim of the insurgents that they
either now reacquired or had never
forfeited their constitutional rights in
the Union, including that Ofrepresenta-
ton in Congress, stands in pointed an
tagonism alike to the requirements Of
Congress and to those of the acting
President. 1t was the Executive alone
who, after the rebellion was no more,
appointed Provisional Governors for
the now submissive, unarmed South
ern States, on the assumption that the
rebellion had been "revolutionary," !"
and had deprived the people under its
sway of all civil government, and who
required the assembling of ga Conven-
tion, composed of delegates to be chos-
en- by that portion of the people of said
State who are loyal to the United
States, and no others, for the purpose
of altering and amending the Consti-
tuition of said State" 1t was Presi-
dent johnson who, so late as October
last-when all shadow of overt resis-
tance to the Union had long since dis
ppeared-insisted that it was not
enough that State which had revolt
cd must recognize her ordinance of Sc
cession as null and void from the be-
ginning, and ratify the constitutional
amendment prohibiting slavery ever
more, but she must also repudiate
"every dollar of Indebtedness created
to aid in carrying on the rebellion. y
1t was he who ordered the dispersion
by military force of any Legislature
chosen under the rebellion which should
assume power to make laws after that
rebellion had fallen. 1t was he who
referred to Congress all inquirers as to
the probability of Representatives from
the States lately in revolt being ad-
mitted to seats in either House, and
suggested that they should present
their credentials, not at the organiza-
ton of Congress, but aftsrward. And
finally, it was he, and not Congress,
who suggested to his Governor Sharkey
of Mississippi, that
"If you could extend the elective fran
chise to all persons of color who can read
the Constitution of the United States, in
English, and write their names, and to all
persons of color who own real estate valu-
ed at not less than $3.50, and pay taxes
thereon, you would completely disarm the
adversary and set an example that other
States will follow"
If, then, there be any controversy as
to the right of the loyal States to exact
conditions and require guarantees of
those which plunged madly into Sc
cession and rebellion, the supporters
respectively of Andrew Johnson and
of Congress can not be antagonist par
ties to that contest, since their record
places them on the same side.
1t being thus agreed that conditions
of restoration and guarantees against
future rebellion may be exacted of the
States lately in revolt, the right of
Congress to a voice in prescribing those
conditions and in shaping those guar
antees is plainly incontestible. Wheth-
er it takes the shape of a law or of a
constitutional amendment, the action
of Congress is vital. Even if they
were to be settled by treaty, the ratifl.
cation of the Senate, by two-thirds
vote, would be Indispensable. There
is nothing in the Federal Constitution