The tri-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1866-1868, 1866-09-22

voters but he looks forward to the period
when. the States will establish what is called
impartial suffrage.
The proposed amendment also provides
that certain persons who had taken an oath
to support the Constitution of the United
States and afterwards engaged in the REBEL
ion, shall not hold any Office, civil or militia
ry, under the United States, or under any
State, unless the Congress by vote of two
thirds shall remove such disability.
What sound objection can there be to
this9 If it be said that it is harsh and de-
grading in its nature, I reply that President
johnson has already gone much further in
making treason odious than this provision
goes. He excluded from his amnesty procla-
nation not less than twenty-five thousand
persons. He not only deprived them, at his
mere will and pleasure, of the right to hold
Office, but of the right to vote; and he held
them as he holds some ofthem to- day. not only
as non-voters, but liable at any moment to
the pains and penalties of treason. This
proposed amendment depriyes no man of
his right of suffrage. 1t simply says to the
fomenters and leaders of the rebellion-Your
lives and property are spared; you are per-
mitted to vote, as heretofore; you will not
be molested in your ordinary rights citi-
zens but you will not be permitted just now
to occupy the chief places over the heads of
those whom your conduct has ruined. You
the benefit of the exercises, but you can not
be priests or elders at this time. Your hands
are still red with the blood of your brethren,
whom We sew while they were struggling to
save the Ark of the Covenant, and the fires
of resentment and pride are still smouldering
in your hearts But even were this not so,
it is not reasonable or seemly that the des-
troyers of the peace and happiness of the
country should at once become the conserva-
tors of that peace and the promoters of that
happiness. Stand aside for the present. AS
you have lost position by your bad conduct,
so you shall regain it only by your good con-
duct. We will not judge you harshly, but
tenderly and kindly as brethren. We do not
punish you. We simply put you on your
good behavior for the future; and if you re-
pent and do well, and manifest sincere pur-
pose to become loyal, Union-loving citizens,
it will afford us much pleasure to remove the
disability, and allow you to hold Office
What could be more reasonable or generous?
But we are told by those who are thus eX-
Guided that the object is to punish and de-
grade them. If this be true, it Furnishes and
degrades Union men also. 1t puts under
ban nearly all tue leading Union men
of the State. Our opponents are candid for
once. They admit that it is a punishment
to be excluded from Office, and they have
been so long in office that they feel ''degra-
ded" when they are cast out. These very
leaders punished our people for four long
years. They tithed them, they impressed
them, they conscribed them, forcing even the
yearling boys from their weeping mothers
into camp, and into the fire of battle, be-
fore their bones had hardened, -they hound
ed down our best citizens as traitors, and
shot and hanged them, because they loved
the Union and the flag; they plundered, ex-
hausted Impoverished, and ruined this peo-
pie and yet now complain, after having
inflicted all these wrongs on their country,
that they are about to be punished, because
they not to be allowed to monopolize for
all time all the offices and honors,
l regard this provision as generous and
merciful in its character 1t seems to me
if these politicians thus excluded really loved
their country, they would sacrifice themselves
temporarily for the good of their country.
Ii they really desired the restoration of the
Union, or if they only had becoming modesty
and self respect, they would not stand in the
way, but would come forward like patriots
and men and beg to be overlooked or forgot
ten until the great work was accomplished.
They would say, our country first, our coun-
try last, our country all the time. The
issue is, the Union of the States with these
persons temporarily out of office or contin-
ued disunion, discomfort, and probable civil
war, with these persons in office. That
man is patriot, but is supremacy self
when he knows he is doing so at the expense
of the unity, harmony, and prosperity of his
country.
The remaining section of the proposed
provides that the national debt
shall never be questioned, and that the rebel
debt shall be held illegal and void. Here
also, we have the concurrence and en-
dorsement of the President, repeatedly made
known in the most emphatic manner.
The President simply enabled the people
of the rebell:ous States to organize new gov
1t was his wish that these gov
ernments should be, in all respects, unmis-
takably loyal-that they should have no Sec
tionalism or secessionism about them, but
should be living sources of national princi-
pies and sentiments. 1t was his desire, also,
as conclusive and browning evidence of such
loyalty and such nationality of sentiment,
that the members chosen to Congress should
be persons who could take the test OATH l
am satisfied that if these States had done
what was required of them with alacrity and
and had sent Senators and Re-
representatives. who, to man, could have ia
ken this oath, their claim to be admitted to
their seats would have been irresistible. The
Union would have been restored last Deem
Der. We should have had peace and har-
n, ony to-day, and reviving and increasing
Dr., osperity, instead of chickering's, and dis
ord, and sectional hate, and threats of revo-
,hese things, of all those resources which
stimulate and reward enterprise and indus
Try. But such was the destructive and par
llyzi ng influence of the spirit of secession
anon G our people and in our public coun-
;ils, hat the Congress, which is a consti-
luton al co-worker with the President in
;hese things, began to doubt the fitness
Of the States for admission. That body,
without; undoing what the President had
done, at length required that what the
States b ad agreed to do in their amended
Constit, ltions, or by ordinances of Conven-
lions, or by legislative enactment, should be
engrafte.l in the fundamental law of the ma
lion. T hat is all. The proposed amend
ment in relation to representation in Con-
gress, is he Legitimate result, as have al
ready sho wn, of the extinction of slavery
There is OF a principle in any section of the
proposed mendment which has not received,
in some for m or other, the approval of the
President If, therefore, our people agree
with the President, and if they are disposed
to carry out in good faith what they have