Bradford reporter. [volume] (Towanda, Pa.) 1844-1884, 1866-09-06

there would have been no withdrawal o
, Southern Senators aid Representatives
from Congress, and therefore no question
as to their inherent right to return. Ii
Missouri and Kentucky, for example, there
was civil war, waged by inhabitants o
those States against their local govern
ments, as well as against the United States
and nobody contends that the rights anG
privileges Of those States were forfeited by
the criminal acts of Their citizens But the
real strength of the rebellion consisted in
this, that it was not rebellion dgainS
States, but rebellion By States No loose
assemblage of individuals, though number
ing hundreds of thousands, could long have
resisted the pressure of the Federal power
and the pressure of the State governments
They would have had no means of subsis
tence except those derived by plunder and
voluntary contributions, and they would
have lacked the military organization by
which mobs are transformed into formida.
BILE armies. But the rebellion being one of
States, being virtually decreed by the peo.
pie OF States assembled in convention, was
sustained by the two tremendous govern.
mental powers of taxation and cOnscrip-
ton. The willing and the unwilling were
thus equally placed at the disposition of a
strong Government. The population and
wealth of the whole immense region of
country in which the rebellion prevailed
were at the service of this Governments
So completely was it a rebellion of States,
that the universal excuse of the minority
OF original Union men for entering heartily
into the contest after it had once begun
was, that they thought it their duty to
abide by the decision and share the for
tunes of their respective States. Nobody
at the South believed at the time the war
commenced, or during its progress, that his
State possessed any continuous" right
to participation in the privileges of the
Federal Con. titution, the obligations of
which it had repudiated. When confident
of success, the Southerner scornfully scout
ed the mere suspicion of entertaining such
a degrading notion when assured of de-
feat, his only thought was to "get his
State back into the Union on the best terms
that could be made" The idea of "con-
ditions of readmission was as firmly fixed
in the Southern as in the Northern mind
If the politicians of the South now adopt
the principle that the rebel States have
not, as States, ever altered their relations
to the Union, they do it from policy, finding
that It's adoption will give them "better
terms than they ever dreamed of getting
before the President of the United States
taught them that it would be more polite
to bully than to plead
| In the last analysis, indeed, the theory
of the minority of the Reconstruction Com.
mittee reduces the rebel States to mere alb
stractions. 1t is plain that State in the
concrete, is constituted by that portion of
the inhabitants who form its legal people
and that, in passing back of its govern
ment and constitution, we reach a conven-
ton of the legal people as its ultimate ex-
| preston. BY such conventions the acts of
secession were passed and, as far as the
people of the rebel States could do it, they
destroyed their States considered as organ
| lied communities forming a part of the
United States. The claim of the United
States to authority over the territory and
inhabitants was, of course, not affected by
these acts but in what condition did they
place the people? Plainly in the condition
of rebels engaged in an attempt to over
turn the Constitution and Government of
the United States. AS the whole force of
the people in each of the rebel communi-
ties was engaged in this work, the whole
of the people were rebels and public ene-
mics. Nothing was left, in each case, but
an abstract State, without any external
body, and as destitute of people having a
right to enjoy the privileges of the Consti-
tuition as if the territory had been swept
clean of population by a pestilence. 1t is,
then, only this abstract State which has a
right to representation in Congress. But
how can there be right to representation
when there is nobody to be represented
All this may appear puerile, but the pueril
ity is in the premises as well as in the log
ical deductions, and the premises are laid
down and indisputable constitutional prin-
ciples by the eminent .jurists who supply
ideas for the National Union party.
The doctrine Of the unconditional right
of the rebel States to representation being
thus demonstrated absurdty, the only
question relates to the conditions which
Congress proposes to impose. Certainly
these conditions, as embodied in the consti-
tutional amendment which has passed both
houses of Congress by such overwhelming
majorities, are the mildest ever exacted of
defeated enemies by victorious nation
There is not distinctly radical " idea in
the whole Notwithstanding that Presi-
dent johnson has not himself within a
comparatively recent period, stamped with
his high appreciation. Does it ordain uni
versal suffrage? No. Does it ordain i'm
partial suffrage? No Does it prescribe,
disfranchise, or expatriate the recent armed
enemies of the country. or confscate their
property? No. 1t simply ordains that the
national debt shall be paid and the rebel
debt repudiated that the civil rights of
all persons shall be maintained that reb-
els who have added perjury to treason shall
be disqualified for office and that the reb-
ell States shall not have their political pow
er in the Union increased by the presence
on their soil of persons to whom they deny
political rights, but that representation
shall be based throughout the Republic on
voters, and not on population. The pith of
the whole amendment is in the last clause;
and is there anything in that to which rea-
sonable objection can be made Would
it Lot be curious result of the war against
rebellion, that it should end in comforting
on rebel voter in South Carolina power
! equal, in national affairs, to that of two
loyal voters in New York Can any DEM
ocrat have the face to assert that the South
| should have, through it's disfranchised ne.
Il l. -.,ol