Daily union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1865-1866, 1866-08-09

! schemes and force that war upon US; bU
sooner or later, in my time, | trust, and j
| time Of the oldest here, we shall see tn
/ grand fabric Of Constitutional American lit
/ erty restored as our fathers made it; AI
| plausel not five and thirty States, but hun
| dred; the American Government extendin
its protection from one enc Of the NortI
! American continent to the other; the flag o
| that Government, such as / have described
floating in triumph over every acre Of thi
territory. This is the vision which nov
dawns upon my eye, and have faith tina
it will yet be realized.
After fifteen months Of so-called peace
when not a hostile gun has been fred in th'
lately Confederate States, when no armed
foe against the authority Of the United
States has appeared, still we have neither q
Constitution maintained nor a Union re
stored and to-day we are in the midst o.
the very questions, in a different form only
which divided us six years ago in the Presi-
Dental election, and during the memorable
session Of Congress that preceded the war
Mr.. LINCOLN said, and / believe it is about
the only wise thing know of his having
uttered laughter possibly it may have
been the production of some one else, that
you might go to war and fight for years, but
that after much blood had been shed, much
ruin accomplished, and you had ceased fight
ing, the same identical question Of terms OF
intercourse between the States would remain
as before the war. Never was prophecy bet
ter verified. To-day it is a question Of the
terms ofintercourse, as LINCOLN proclaimed
it. The President Of the United States,
hu a aIofv II ofy
cy. The Democratic party Of the United
States, having no power we're obliged either
10 reject or accept that line of policy, be-
lieving without reference to its incipient
stages, its Inauguration, or any question of
Constitutional right growing out Of it, be-
lieving, nevertheless, that that policy did
tend 70 the maintenance Of the Constitution,
the reconstruction Of the Union, and the
preservation Of our liberties. The Demo-
cratic party of the United States have ac-
cepted the reconstruction policy Of the Presi-
dent His own party, the men who elected
him President, have rejected and repudiated
that policy. What is it2 As it stands to-
day, on the one side immediate, uncondi-
tional readmission Of the Southern States, as
States, to the exercise Of equal rights within
the Union upon the other side, the accept
snce Of conditions which imply, as Isaid, first,
dishonor and degradation, and next the loss,
total and absolute, Of political equality, the
very cornerstone Of our confederation. APP
plause.l These policies have grown out of
different notions, different instincts, totally
different ideas, and essentially different forms
Ct civilization.
The President, born in the South, educated
in the Democratic party, and known, previ-
GUS to the war, only as being little too
much Of a Democrat, if you please; for the
only charge / ever heard against ANDREW
JOHNSON, previous TO 1861 Il don't make it,
l repeat it,, that he was so much of a Demo-
crat that he was a good deal of a demagogue.
When expressing confidence in him, | was
met by this declaration, and / said that in
the tendency Of the times in which we lived
toward Capitalization Of power and the abb
sorption Of all the rights Of the States in the
General Government, / would rather have a
man whose creed was, that the people could
do no wrong, than one who believed that the
people never did right nor thought right.
I Applause. II is the old Federal school
and the old Democratic school of politics
that to-day raised these issues, and these
schools grew out of the different races by
which this continent was settled. We had
in New England the Puritan race. Now,
understand me, all New Englanders are not
Puritans They may be all Yankees, and we
all know that 10 the people Of Great Britain,
all Americans are Yankees and down in
these eleven States that made up the late
Confederate Government, why we were all
called Yankees; yes, you kentuckians, l
know that, for | was there, you remember.
I Laughter. You Kentuckians in the Fede-
raj army were Yankees too. But the dOmi-
nant party in New England to-day, as from
the beginning, is the Puritan, narrow, con-
tracted, intermeddling; that spirit which
from the first has spread 50 much mischief
among the children of men; the fruitful pa
rents of the wars and all discords among ma
tons and communities. What is il? Why,
that other men shall not be permitted to do
and think differently from them who be-
lieve themselves the peculiar favorites of
Heaven. Laughter
Il is the spirit that dictated the famous re-
solution in the early settlement of New
England, when, instead Of taking possession
as DANIEL BOONE did Of Kentucky, rifle in
hand, the saints met together near Cape
Cod or Plymouth Rock, somewhere in that
region, and, to ease their consciences and
proclaim to the world how sanity and how
pious they were, resolved, first, that the
earth was the Lords, and the fullness there
Of; second, that the earth belonged to the
saints and, third that they were the saints.
[ Applause and laughter From that hour
the same spirit has Characterized these men.
Some Of them, either because they were too
stingy TO use common but well understood
to buy spirituous liquor or
nina onG hotrfnfr M ono art,nner than, lihorol
enough 10 offer il as a gif, and, therefore,
being temperate, were resolved that nobody
living in Kentucky or Ohio should drink
wine or spurious liquor. Believing that
some particular form of religion was the
from Heaven, and that they were the only
men who had that divinelight, that illumin-
ating principle which made them in direct
mesmeric or Geographic connection with the
Almighty, they were resolved that nobody
who worshiped God in any other way was
entitled to property and liberty and life.
They didn't wear coats Of that peculiar cut
which need not be newfoundland they
thought that any man who wore Quaker
clothes sinned against God Almighty. They
hung Quakers upon the trees in Boston
Common. Some miserable old spinster,
too ugly TO find herself husband laughter
took into to her head that some rival spin
ster had betwitched her, and therefore she
could not get married and thus hue and
cry was raised against particular class of
old and homely hays, that they we're bewitch-
ed that witchcrah was a sin denounced in
the Old Testiment that il was a sin against
God and these ministers Of divine ven
geance accordingly proceeded to avenge the
sin against the Almighty by burning the
witches.
Now, this same spirit has continued to our
own day. 1t is the spirit Of the late civil
war, There was not one victim offered up
there on the field Of battle, there was not a
widows sigh or an orphans groan, not one
drop Of blood, not one dime Of treasure,
nothing Of the suffering which overspread
the country that can not be directly traced
20 this cursed spirit Of Puritan intermed-
ding. Applause Why, about 1887 they
discovered that slavery was not profitable in
Massachusetts or New England. They were
the first shareholders; they were the first
slave importers, and they we're the last, for
the very last ship, on the Slst day Of Deem
Der, 1896, that entered Charleston harbor,
was owned almost exclusively by New Eng
landers. But they discovered that it was
improbable, and they resolved that slavery
was wrong was a sin; but they took good
care not 20 emancipate their slaves, but TO
sell them down South, and thus abolished
slavery. LApplausel By-and-by it turned
out that slavery grew and hourished.
Now, understand me; l am not hereto de-