The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1866-04-27

must have who, standing aloof from the war
and enjoying the glory and blessings of the
victories won by our gallant armies, with
out sharing their tolls and perils, now, in
stead of initiating the soldiers magnanimi-
ty in lifting up fallen brother, would
strike down again the helpless: and who
demand spoil, confscation, more blood, and
would have it shed on a scaffold, where
they could enjoy the tragedy at ease as in a
theatre.
How differently felt that true friend Of
the Union-President Lincoln His hu-
name instincts taught him that the bleeding
gashes made by the word, which had sew
cred for the time the affections of the coun-
try, were best cured when soonest bound
and healed with the first intention. He
looked upon the States as members of the
same body, still united to it by all the in
destructible ligatures of the Constitution,
but suffering, under the weight of the usur-
patton, a suspended animation. That re-
moved, the States were in condition to
resume their functions with all the rights
and faculties unimpaired to them by the
Constitution. When the military power had
done its duty delegated by the supreme
law, and had suppressed the instruction,
had extirpated its cause, and all impedi-
ments to their normal prescribed action, by
what right did Congress interpose, assume
to prescribe conditions not to be found in
|, Low Oh l., -
gress itself, and which established the State
rights in derogation of which Congress
attempted to legislate?
1t was upon this attempt that Lincoln put
his veto. Congress undertook to enact con-
dItions not in the constitution of the United
States, upon which the Southern States
should act with their sisters of the North.
This the President considered sheer AFRO
cation. 1t was presuming that the States
were dead; that the General Government
having failed in its duty to suppress the
conspiracy and instruction under which
they were compelled to succumb for a time,
the States had committed suicide-had be-
come outlying Territories, conquered from
a foreign enemy. The whole Pretext was
built up of false assumptions. The, Presi-
dent proclaimed that the war was Waged by
the nation the principle that the States
| in whiG hn reigned were parcel
Sthe nation-could nor should not be sepa-
ted from it by their own or any other power,
that neither the Congress Of the United
States nor that of the usurping. Confederacy
could alter their status in the Union.
Upon this issue, deliberately argued over
4sshe whole country and in Congress, the
President was nominated o-election by
the Republican Convention at Baltimore,
which reafirmed his principles. Leading
members of the party in Congress protested
against the doctrine, called it in question,
in an able manifesto, which was an appeal
to theA people against it, bg veto rati-
fed it at the polls. 1t was b ksup at
the last 9ession of Congress for practical
applications in the admission of Louisiana,
and was only defeated BY sort of revolu-
tior4ry tactics on the part Of Mr.. Sumner
and FIVE other Senators, who, when the bill
was on its passage, took the floor and an
nounced the determination 70 speak out the
session and lose the bills necessary to sup
port the Government and carry on the war.
Now, the whole Radical parts have as
sumed as their party r-'nolPie Inc anti
constitutional doetnno that the States put
lin obevsses by rebellious usurpation snail
only be recognized as in the Uuion when
submitting to terms prescribed by an act of
Congress This attains the point at which
the Essex junto-the high-hying Federal
lists of the North-Would, at the beginning
of the Government, have fixed the power
of the General Government. The whole
policy of this aristocratic body of politicians
have ever been, and is now, the considera-
ton of the supreme power in the hands oil
| Congress. It's Legislation is to perVade the
| States and supplant that of their Legisla-
| lures.
They make full manifestation of their
design in their Freedmen's Bureau bill and
their Civil Rights bill by which they under
take to establish patton of negroes among
a nation of whites, and render them indie
pendent of the laws and courts Of the States
in which they reside-and in contempt O.
all sense of justice and humanity, theiI
revolutionary measures invading the rights
of the States, and annuling their municipa
laws, by excluding them from their right:
in the Union, aud their representation from
the halls of Congressman governing then
as England once governed Ireland refusing
to hear her voice in the Imperial Parlia
meut.
As ireland was governed by laws sent Il
her from England, so the eleven States 0
the South, still excluded from representa-
ton in Congress, although they have giver
proof of entire submission to the laws anC
Constitution and acquiesce in all the issues
determined by the war are governed b.
laws shaped in caucus, and passed By
Congress representing another section Of tn