Daily union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1865-1866, 1866-04-26
THE PRESIDENT AND THE COUNTRY
From the Boston Post.l

! From the Boston Postl
Without offering to compare the Presi-
dents last speech with any he has previous
/ ly made, we can assert that it is an effort
worthy of the gravity Of the times and his
| own exalted position. He takes his hearers
and readers through the several crises that
| have marked cur nations career, and i'm
pressed upon their minds that this last is the
most important and trying Of them all
| The speech is compact in argument, sinewy
| IN phrase, and full of the marrow of patriot
| ic meaning. No philosopher could better
deliDeate the true method of restoring amity
where discorG had 80 recently ruled The
| great and single purpose of the late conflict
he does not lose sight Of for an instant. We
fought the war through TO make good the
assertion that no State or combination of
States, could disrupt this great Union by
| force; and we should throw away all we
have gained at such a cost, besides belieing
our solemn professions, if We now admit
that the attempt at disunion had resulted
practically in success. This portion of the
speech is reasoned with great elearness and
force of expression.
As to what is, from the circumstances of
the case, personal to himself, he speaks
with the frankness of one whose opinions
are too sound to be advanced by half con-
cealment or the slightest appearance of
qualification. The exigency requires speech
that is open and unrestrained, to which the
intrepid and self-sustaining character of
Mr.. johnson is clearly equal. He passes
by his calumniatOrs with phrase or two of
scorn, as any patriot would who had been
tried in the furnace he has passed through,
g, L. 10 10 t.I IL
the malignant sneers and accusations of
factioDists and fanatics. They never can
ingram their notions of what is loyal and
true into the fibre of nature like his; its
very honesty drives it at once to revolt.
The people will nowhere find more
clear and compendious statement of the sew
eral steps-unforced and carefully premedi-
tated-by which restoration was begun and
continued. First, the courts, with their
machinery; then, the mails, with their in
describable conveniences next, the re-
opened custom houses, and free and unre-
stricted trade from the coast to the interior;
and finally, so far as the official and proper
recommendations of the President can ad-
vance that essential act of perfect reunion,
the admission of the representatives from
the Southern States, on the distinct request
of the people of those States, into the Ma
tional Legislature No man of intelligence
can peruse the brief sentence in which the
President recapitulates the grounds and
again argues the question of admission, and
be at further loss to distinguish between
what belongs to justice and right, and what
is the inspiration of the most shameful par
tizanship that ever constituted an epoch in
peoples history.
Holding firmly to such opinions, inspired
by such sentiments, devoted to such theory
of republican government, and full of faith
in the future for the nation, it is a dull
prophet who should presume to say that
the people of the country will not come
sboldly to his support, and give all possible
strength to the arm that is doing such val
liant service for them. He speaks but the
truth when he declares that he is fighting
the spirit of consolidation now, as he fought
the spirit of disunion before. Both would
be tyrants in our republican system, bent on
overturning the fabric of popular liberty.
1t needed no more evidence to show that
he would be found opposing the one Chan
that he did boldly oppose the other.
1t is refreshing, after dreary spell of
doubt and distracted feeling on the part of
the people, for them to catch such strong
words of buoyant and courageous patriot
ism as President johnson has Just spoken to
the soldiers and sailors at Washington. No
one of us ought to despair of his country's
continued freedom, when the Executive
himself stands in the breach which the ty-
ranny Of faction would make wider, and
calls on the people to come to the rescue of
liberty, He is, for the moment, but one
against an organized force; but he stands
for constitutional prerogative, and to such
an issue the American people cannot, if
they would, be Indifferent.