The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1866-08-28

ldCllOH III aEEdyluB Inc interest OF Otl-
| ers against their convictions; and hav-
ing thus the power to purchase sup
port, it will not fail of those means of
! dividing the North which come of cor
rupting it. The party under which the
war for the Union was conducted, is to
be denounced and prescribed as the
party of disunion, and we are to be edi-
| fed by addresses On the indissoluble
unity of the nation by secessionistS who
have hardly yet had time to wash from
their hands the stains of Union blood.
The leading proposition on which this
conspiracy against the country is to be
conducted, Is the monstrous absurlity
that the rebel States have an inherent,
continuous" uncOnditiOned, cOnstitu-
tional right to form part of the FEEDER
al Government, when they have once
acknowledged the fact of the defeat OF
their inhabitants in an armed attempt
to overthrow and subvert it-a PROPOSE
tion which implies that victory par
alyZes the powers of the victors; that
ruin begins when success is assured;
that the only effect of beating South
ern rebel in the field, is to exalt him
into maker of laws for his antagonist
In the minority report of the congress
sional Joint Committee on Reconstruc-
tion, which is designed to supply the
new party with constitutional law, this
theory of State rights is most elaborate
-
during the rebellion the States IN which
it prevailed were as Completely com
petent States of the United States as
they were before the rebellion, and were
bound by all the obligati ons which the
Constitution imposed, and entitled to
all its privileges" and that the rebel
lion consisted merely in series of ell
legal acts ofthe citizens of such States"
On this theory it is difficult to find
where the guilt of rebellion lies. The
States are innocent, because the rebel
lion was rising of individuals; the in
dividuals cannot be very criminal, for
it is on their votes that the committee
chiefly rely to build up the National
Union party. Again, we are informed
that in respect TO the admission of rep
resentatives from "such States" Con-
gress has no right or power to ask more
than two questions. These are: "HaVo
these States organized governments?
Are these governments republican in
fOrm?" The committee proceed to say:
."HOw they were formed, under what
auspices they We're formed, are inqui-
ries with which Congress has no con-
Germ. The right of the people to form a
government for themselves has never
been questioned" On this principle
President Johnson's labOrs in organiz-
ing State governments were works of
supererOgatiOn. At the close of active
hostilities the rebel States had organ
lied, though dislOyal, governments as
republican in form as they were before
the war broke out. The only thing,
therefore, they were required to do was
to send their Senators and Representa-
tives to Washington. Congress could
not have rightfully refused to receive
them, because all questions as to their
being loyal or disloyal, and as to the
changes which the war had wrought in
the relations of the States they repre-
Rnf1f To :
which Congress had no concern. And
here again we have the ever-recurring
difficulty respecting the "individuals'
who were alone guilty of the acts of
rebellion. "The right of the people,"
we are assured, "to form n government
toned" But it happens that "the peo-
ple' here indicated are the very indi-
viduals who were before pointed out as
alone responsible for the rebellion. In
the exercise of their right "to form a
government for themselves they re-
belled; and now, it seems, by the exer-
else of the same right they can uncon-
ditionally return. There is no wrong
anywhere; it is all "right." The people
are first made criminals in order to eX-
culpate the States, and then the inno-
cence of the States is used to eXculpate
the people. When we see such out
RACES on common sense gravely perpe-
one who drew up the committees re-
port, one is almost inclined to define
minds as of two kinds, the legal mind
and the human mind, and to doubt if
there is any possible connection in rea-
son between the two. To the human
mind it appears that the Federal Gov
ernment has spent thirty-five hundred
millions of dollars, and sacrificed three
hundred thousand lives, in contest
which the legal mind dissolves into
mere mist of unsubstantIal phrases;
and by skill in the trick of substituting
words for things, and definitions for
events, the legal mind proceeds to show
that these words and definitions,
though ScrupulouSly shielded from any
contact with realities, are sufficient to
prevent the nation from taking ordIna-
ry precaution against the recurrence of
calamitfes fresh in its bitter experience.
The phrase estate rights" translated
from legal into human language, is
found to mean the power to commit
wrongs on individuals whom States
may desire to oppress, or the power to
protect the Inhabitants of States from
the cons sequences Of their own crimes.
The minority of the committee, indeed,
seem to have forgotten that there has
been any real war, and bring to mind
the converted Australian savage whom
the missionary could not make penitent
for murder committed the day before
because the trifling occurrence had al
together passed from his recollection.
In fact, all attempts to discriminate
between rebels aDd the rebel States, to
the advagtage of the latter, are done in
d iance of notorious facts. If the re-
belliOn had been merely a rising of in
dividual citizens of States, it would
have been an insurrection against the
States, well as against the Federal
Government, and might have been easi-
ly put down. 1t that case there would
have been no withdrawal of Southern
Senators and Representatives from
Congress, and therefore no question aS
to their inherent right to return. In
Missouri and Kentucky, for example,
there was civil war, waged by inhabi-
tants of those States against their local
governments, as we'll as against the
United States; and nobody contends
that the rights and privileges of those
States were forfeited by the criminal
acts of their citizens. But the real
strength of the rebellion consisted in
this, that it was not Al rebellion against
States, but rebellion 6y States. No
loose assemblage of individuals, though
numbering hundreds of thousands
could long have resisted the pressure of
the Federal power and the pressure of
tie State governments. They would
have had no means of subsistence ex-
cept those derived by plunder and vol
untary contributions, and they would
have lacked the military organization
by which mobs are transformed into
being one of States, being virtually de-
creed by the people of States assembled
in convention, was sustained by the
two tremendous governmental powers
of taxation and conscription. The
willing and the unwilling were thus