Bradford reporter. [volume] (Towanda, Pa.) 1844-1884, 1866-05-03

respects Mr.. Stevens's sturdy fidelity to his
own convictions, agrees with i'm, or that the
National Union party holds his view Mr..
Sumner holds that equal suffrage should be
required OF the absent States as condition
of representation, and in Radical Senate
which passed the Civil Rights bill over the
veto by vote of 33 to Is, Mr. Summers
proposition obtained votes These gen
tlemen, of course, support the Radical pol
icy, but they do not shape it. The opin-
ions of the Union party are to be found, as
President johnson says, in the party plat
form. The policy of the Radicals is to be
seen in the measures they adopt; and of
the forty-two bills which at the time of the
last veto they had presented to the Presi-
dent, he had signed forty
In our present political situation Conser-
vatism is the policy which declares that the
late rebel States are already in a condition
to resume their full functions in the Union
and which denounce Congress for presum-
ing to inquire whether that opinion is well
founded. 1t denies to Congressional is, to
the representatives of the loyal people who
have maintained the Government-the au-
thority to look behind the credentials Of any
man who comes from a State still painting
with rebellion, and ascertaining the origin
and validity Of the authority that issued
the credentials. 1t objects to the legisla-
ton of Congress while eleven States are I'M
represented, without reference to the rea-
son of their absence, thus virtually main
tanning the monstrous proposition that a
combination of States, by refusing to be
represented, may prohibit national legisla-
tion. 1t denies that the United States
ought to protect the equal civil rights of
citizens before the law, and would admit
the absent States to Congress before re-
! quiring their assent to an amendment
equalizing representation. Conservatism
is the policy which, forgetting that the
! United States are bound by every moral
obligation to secure the freedom which they
have conferred, apparently believes that
| that freedom will be best maintained and
| the national peace most truly established
by leaving those Of every color who were
| heroically faithful to the Government DUR
ing the rebellion to the exclusive mercy of
those who sought to destroy it.
! These are the distinctive points of the
Conservative policy. Are hey agreeable
to an honorable and intelligent people !?
And of what is this policy conservative
| If of the Constitution and Union, it will of
course be earnestly supported by their true
and tried friends. Is it so supported? Who
are the present Conservatives? Who shout
and sing and fire cannon and ring bells in
iubilant eXutation at every measure in
supposed accordance with this policy? The
reply is, unfortunately, unavoidable. The
| Conservative party, or the supporters of
the policy we have described, is composed
Of the late rebels and Of those who justified
and palliated rebellion, with a few Repub-
Iicans. And who oppose this policy? Who
are the Radicals? The great multitude of
! those who believed in the war and supper
| ted it, whose children and brothers and
friends lie buried in the battlefield in every
rebel State, whose sentiments are now as
they have been for five years expressed by
the Union press of the country and whose
voice speaks in the vote of the Union Leg
isla lures and in the result of the spring
elections.
1t is useless for Conservatism to claim
that conciliation is essential to reorganiza-
tion. Nobody denies it. But the cardinal
question is, not what will please the late
Insurgents, but what will secure the Gov
ernment. If it be said that the Govern
ment can rot be secured by alternating it's
can not be secured by alternating its nm
wavering friends. If Cancellation contem-
plates the filling of national offices in the
South by known rebels to the disregard and
| exclusion of Union men, thereby rewarding
rebellion and discrediting loyalty-if ii
proposes to leave freemen of the United
States to the Black Codes of Mississippi
and Carolina, and to recognize the fatal
spirit Of caste which has been our curse
then concilation is simply name for ig-
uomity and Conservatism may see its fate
IN that Of Secession.
Radicalism has not single vindictive
feeling toward the late rebel States, but it
does not propose to forget that there has
been a rebellion. 1t has the sincerest wish,
as it had the most undoubting expectation,
of working with the President to secure for
the country what the country has fairly
won by the war, and that is, the equal right
of every citizen before the law and the full
resumption by the late insurgent States Oi
their functions in the Union only upon such
honorable and reasonable conditions as
Congress might require All reasonable
men who support that policy will not light
ly denCunce those who differ with them
They will strive long for the harmony Of
those with whom during the war they have
sympathized and acted. They will concede
minor points Of method, and bear patiently
with impatient rhetoric leveled at them
selves But they will also bear steadily in
mind the words of Andrew Johnson when
he accepted the nomination which has
placed him where he is "While society is
in this disordered state and we are seeking
security, let us fix the foundations of the
Government on principles Of eternal justice
) which will endure for all time" The Rad
ical policy was never more tersely ex
pressed and it will unquestionably be
maintained, for it is founded in the PLANES
common sense and the profoundest convic
! tion of the loyal American peOple.-Har
e 6 Per's Weekly.
ILLINOIS The name of the State of III
i inois originated in this manner:-A party
Of Frenchmcn set out upon an exploring
expedition down the river, which thew af