American citizen. [volume] (Butler, Butler County, Pa.) 1863-1872, 1866-06-06

| ttaitors their especlai ifIebus AAt
more natural than that these men wh
were to be made odioua aAoald make
odious to have been a Union man, and a
Mr.. Bolts says in Virginia, shcsld "as-
same a superiority over the loyal men o
this State, impudent, defiant, and deter
mined to ostraeize, decapitate, aud pu
the brand of infamy upon loyal men, anc
by Legislation to render treason commend
able and loyalty crime" What won
der that the late rebel Mayor of Mobile
at banquet of rebels, toasts together
Andrew johnson and Jefferson Davis
while John Minor Bolts, whose fidelity t.
the Union will not be questioned, eclare'
that he has abandoned President john
sons plan
What is the explanation of this extra
ordinary state of affairs? A year ago
amidst the total ruin of the rebellion and
exhaustation of the rebel section, and
with the hearty sympathy and support Of
every loyal man in the land, Mr.. johnson
became President, declaring, while all
the people said Amen, that treason must
be made odiops. Now, when year has
passed, it is loyalty that is odious and
dangerous in the disa8ected section, and
the vast body of loyal citizens gaze at
the President in wonder. Is this stua-
ton to be explained by the delay of Con-
gress to admit loyal representatives from
unorganized States, or by the fact that
the Executive has not succeeded in max.
ing treason odious in those States
If from the moment he became Presi-
dent Mr.. johnson, while he reasonably
pardoned and ampestied the late rebels,
had strepuously supported in every way
the constant Union men of the rebel
States, if he had shown the most unflinch-
ing determination that every right Of the
freedmen should be respected, aud had
every where manifested the success of the
Government BY ,ss official preference of
those who had defended it and believed
in it under terrible trials, then, whatever
his differences with Congress upon ques.
tions of method might have been, his pol
icy would have been as approved and re-
sistless as that of Mr. Lincoln. As it is.
tAs V"IU' .-,,-, 90 ~ Sn,.hnrn Cta.as
are either silenced as before and during
the war, or else with Mr.. Boots they mean
to try for their rights independently Of
the President.
The sad aud stringent testimony of Mr..
Bolts and FIX Governor Holden Of North
Carolina, neither Of them Radicals, "sup-
ported by the constant evidence of pri-
vate letters and of the frankest state
uents of Southern Union men, that should
the military force be Withdraw they
could not continue 10 live at home-- the
incessant assaults upon the freedmen 8
schools and teaehers-the testimony of
General Grant and o. General Sheridan
that military force must be retained for
a long time yet in the late disaffected
States-the ferocity Of the late rebel
press, and the uudoubted fact, as Cover
nor Holden says, that the true Unionists
are detected, cowed. prescribed, under the
ban snaiall", pecuniarily. and politically" /"
should certainly induce the President to
consider whether there may not be some
bette. explanation of the situat on than
the radlcaliSm of Congress. A little rad
icalsm is perhaps natural and even par
douahle pnder the circumstances And
we hays 40 doubt that if the Executive
should npswerEiRgly iRsist upon making
treason 9iious, not BY banging or impris-
oaipg ar sopascatipg, RQT by traatiHg ev-
cry man who was in arms IS if he Wera q
murderer, but by that firm preference of
tried fidelity which is perfectly intelligi-
BILE and practicable, the morbid turbulence
of tone in the late rebel section would
abate, the painful and prolonged rupture
in the great union party would begin to
heal, and the prospect of truly restored
Union" would become much more prom
ising.