Bedford inquirer. [volume] (Bedford, Pa.) 1857-1884, 1866-06-01

enemies, il ought to be in defense, net in
requital.
~ we impose conditions. To a dispas-
slonate looker-on it must seem strange that,
here in the North, that should be question
at all. AT the close of four years embit-
tered war producing radical change in
the legal and social condition of four millions
of people, creating two vast antagonistic
public debts, and entaiing a thousand di-
yersitles of interest between millions on one
side and millions on the other--it would be
thing incredible that Government coulG be
properly and safely resumed without stipu-
lation or precaEtion, as if nothing had hap
pened. AT such junctute ia our national
affairs, wise precautionary measures are as
strictly a dictate Of duty as they are clearly
a matter Of right
As to the right in this case, the space /
prescribe to myself forbids more than few
words, even if | deem it more necessary
than do formally to argue question so
plain.
shall not, therefore, here broach the
speculative Inquiry what is the precise legal
status of the late insurgent States A mere
technical view of a great subject is always a
contracted one. Questions involving the
life or death Of nations are not decided by
tne-drawn theories. Good Abraham Lin
coin, with that sagacions common sense
which marked the man, when alluding in
the last speech he ever made, 10 the dispu-
ted point whether the seeded States ''are
in the Union or out of il" said: That
question has not been, nor yet is, a practic-
ally material one; and any one discussion Of
it while it thus remains practically inmate
rial can have no other effect than the mis-
chievous use of dividing our friends
Neither shall institute any inquiry as to
our power, at this time, to impose conditions
precedent to restoration. If, by the sacrifice
of 100000 lives and 8, ,000. 900, 900 of treas
ure, the North has not won the right to de-
eide what guarantees are needed to avert, in
future, the perils and sufferings of the past,
then the chapters on War and Peace in the
code Of international Law are so much
waste paper; then no rights can be obtained
by conquest; then the sword is a worthless
weapon, fitted only TO destroy impotent to
save.
Ere we deny such right we must blot
from the books some Of the best known and
mos, universally recognized principles of
public law. We must reject the accented
doctrine that civil war is subject 10 the same
general rules as foreign war, or else we must
refuse to assent to what every publicist of
repute has set forth land what common
sense suggests) as among the most import
ant OF national rights and duties: the rule.
namely, that nation, especially victorious
nation, ought to protect itself not only
against immediate but against prospective
dangers. Deriving all rights attendant on
conquest from '.justifable self fdefense, .
Vattel says
! When the conqaeror has sCbdued hos
tile nation, be may, if prudence 50 require,
render her incapable of doing mischief with
the same ease In future If the
safety Of the State lies at stake, our precau-
ton and foresight cannot be extended too
far. Must we delay to avert our ruin till it
has become inevitable? K An
injury gives a right to provide for our future
safety by depriving the unjust aggressor of
the means of injuring US Faftel. Book
III, Sections 20l, Al, 45.
To us, and not to the unjust aggressor'
who appealed to the wager Of battle and
lost, belongs, at this time, the right to de
eide what guarantees are needed for the
public safety, and how that unjust aggres-
sor' shall be rendered incapable of doing
mischief with the same case in the future. =
Dearly we paid for that right We shall
commit folly unparalleled in the annals of
nations II we neglect to use II.
But ii things are lawful for u.s. all things
are not expedient Thus, tLoa.h lue time
must be taken for the maturing and consum-
nation Of precautionary measures, vet, on
the other hand, one section of a Republic
containing a fourth of its inhabitants cannot
except for season, safely be shut out from
Federal representation. Therefore the po-
litical rights Of the States lately in insurrec-
tion should be restored to them at the earli-
est day consistently with the peace and safety
of the country.
The dangers attendant on unconditional
restoration, which threaten that peace and
safety seem to me three in number; two of
political, the other Of financial charac-
ter
First. The difficulty, partly solved by the
war but remaining open yet on certain points,
growing out of race.
On one branch of this subject little need
be said. Except by the hopelessly prejudi-
ced 1t Is conceded that, in a republic, all
treemen, no matter of what race, must be
secured IN what are civil rights. As to the
mode of comforting, or the manner of enforc-
ing, opinions may differ; but the principle
itself is denied By no party deserving the
name. Men are agreed-that the negro is
not to exist among us as an outlaw. deharred
from owning land, excluded from the wit
ness box, or from courts law, or subjected
to punishments from which other races are
exempt,
But the question of suffrage remains-a
more embarrassing question. My own pref
erence is not for immediate, universal suf-
frage, but for a Constitutional provision
looking to the future; suffrage then to be
qualified as each State may elect, but with
out discrimination Of race perhaps thus
SEC. -. From and after the fourth day
Of July, 1876, no discrimination shall be
made by any State nor by the United States
as TO the enjoyment by classes, of the right
OF suffrage, because Of race, color or previ-
Gus condition OF servitude
Prospective equality of suffrage. with a
novitiate Of ten years for the eolored man
the Centenary of the Declaration a day of
jubilee and enfraDchisement That is my
preference. believe, that if, in Congress
and in the Northern Legislature, the battles
were fought brayely on that issue, it would
be won: and once won, all sectional agita-
tion on the subject of races would cease for
men acquiesee in the inevitable and speedily
adapt themselves to it,
Ultimately it must come to this A ma
ton must act up TO its principles of Govern
ment, whatever they are, if it would secure
in permanence, its domestic tranquility.
England has withheld until this day, from
millions of her adult subjects, the right of
suffrage; but she has no national declaration
that all men are free and equal; it is not
among her political axioms, that taxation