New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1866-08-18


STATE has any longer right (as against the Unon) to
onslave, either formally or virtually, any portion oil
its own people; and CONGRESS is clothed with the
power, and charged with the duty of protecting all
our people from State oppression This duty inc
present Congress has endeavored faithfully TO DIS
charge through the maintenance Of the Freedmcns
Bureau the passage of the Civil Rights act ana INC
newly proposed Amendment whereby state wnlch
DISTINGUISHES any portion of its people, except lor
crime, is precuded from counting that portion as
basis of representation in Congress. Ihese' Win
every attempt Of Congress to protect the southern
Blacks from Rebel persecution and oppression
have been met with the deadllest' most
envenomed hostility. by the entire Johnson
party and every division of it-Rebel, Copper
head, and apostate Republican alike. And every
utterance of the Philadelphia Convention implies
determination that this vital part of the Federal
Constitution shall henceforth be nullifed. " There
is no desire purpose to ree'tabllSh Slavery says
COwan's platform Yes, Sir but suppose such desire
and purpose should hereafter DO formed by any STATE
what is our security against the qualification OF thai
desire the fulfllment of that purpose VIGOROUSLY,
vsssalge could be restored by legislative devices and
legal constructions which would defy successful re-
sstance fit were not for the power conided to Con-
gress to "enforce the above article by appropriate
egislaton." And that power exists in the teeth oil
the Philadelphia Convention with all its works and
ways Is it not plain that Congress chosen under
the auspices Of that Convention will utterly refuse to
enforce the Constitutional guaranteed What do we
daily hear from the entire johnson party with regard
TO the late New Orleans massacre
Mr. Raymond's address, while in terms ignoring
the Constitutional Amendment, in effect denies its
validity. He says
1T the unqucsonabIe right Of the people OF the United
States to make changes the Constitution they upon
hey shall be made in the mode which tho Consultation itself
points oun conformity with the letter and the spirit OF tns
with the principles OF segoyernment ana OF
equal rights which Of Republican nstu.
tons We deny the right OF Congress make these ehags
the Fundamental law without the concurrence OF three
onrhs s tho including especially those TO be most
seriously affected by em 70 impose them upon states or
Of the rgts duties obg atoms which belong under the
Constitution to ell the States alike"
Now it is notorious as the sun in heaven that the
Convention of every Rebel State has adopted the
Constitutional Amendment under durcss-adopted it
because made TO understand that thcy must. South
Carolina and Mississippi would have spurned 1t 10
Delaware and Kentucky did; only they were out and
wanted to get in; while Delaware and Kentucky
were in and entitled TO stay in. II the fundamental
doctrines of the Philadelphia Convention are sound,
then Slavery rightfuy exists at the South to-day,
and must continue TO exist until " the States most
seriously TO DO affected by its abolition shall freely
and voluntarily do what they have hitherto done only
under Executive or Military compulsion. But lot us
look more directly at the case of our Black Union
soldiers:
IJnduestionaby there was a time when we might
have received the revolted States back TO loyalty and
left the Blacks where the Rebellion found them. Up
to January l. 1863, wo were at perfect liberty and
were generally willing to do 80. Even after that,
had we been constrained TO make terms with the Re-
belion. we held that our obligation extended only to
those Blacks who had rendered service to the Union
cause. But the Rebellion was persisted in until
utterly crushed out by force of arms-crushcd out
in part by the yalor of Blacks. whom stern necessity
had forced US 10 arm and call into tho held vi
these the number actually in service when the ne
bellon collapsed was certainly over One Hundred
Thousand, aud probably equal TO all the Rebel
soldiers LEFT in tho army on the day oil Lees
surrender Now we hold that the faithful service OF
these loyal Blacks, with the completeness oil our
triumph involves the Nation in duties which 1t can
not repudihte without perfdy and burning shame.
To allow these dsbandcd Union soldiers to DO stripped
Of their hard-esrned arms by Rebels, as they have
been in several of the "restored" Ststes-to be
taxed at will by embittered Rebels for the education
Of those Rebels children, while their own allowed
no public instruction whatever-to have their testi-
mony rejected in courts of justice, and they placed in
every way under the feet of those they helped to
vanquish-ths is dshonor it is reachery, it is blast
ing crime. Yet this ia what We are required to do by
the Blairs and Raymonds recently assembled in the
Philadelphia Convention.