The Vinton record. [volume] (M'arthur, Vinton County, Ohio) 1866-1891, 1866-05-03
Report of the Reconstruction
Committee.

| hcpOrG VI the Reconstruction
Committee.
OF infinitely more service is a
fifth wheel to a wagon, than has
been the notable committee of Fif
teen, appointed at the instance Of
Thaddeus Stevens before the lower
House of Congress had convened
in the House for the purpose Of
organization, and known as the
Reconstruction committee. 1t was
appointed for the express purpose
of retarding the work of concilia.
ton. 1t was appointed to cast obi,
um upon what the President had
done in that direction. The men
who voted in Republican caucus
for that committee, knew as well
as they knew that they exercised
the function of respiration, that
President Johnson had been sue
cessful beyond all expectation in
his work of conciliation. 1t was
not necessary for him to tell them
a couple days thereafter in his first
annual message, that all that re-
mained to be done to complete the
work of conciliation and ,restora-
ton, was to allow the lately insul-
gent States to resume their right
of representation. They knew it.
1t was not necessary for him to tell
them in that message, that with o
view Of satisfying the predominant
feeling Of the non-slaveholding
States, he had required the South
ern States to ratify the constitu-
tional amendment aboliShing slav-
cry in such form as to preclude Its
re-enactment at any subsequent
period, and that for the purpose Of
reconciling them with this requisi-
tion and to win their affections to
the Government, he gave them to
understand that a general amnesty
should be extended to all who had
participated in the futile enter
prise of seeding from the Union
and erecting an Independent Con-
federacy. They knew it. 1t was
not necessary for General Grant to
make a tour of the South and then
submit report, in which he certi-
fed the loyalty and good behavior
of those whose military power a
short time before he had made it
his duty to demolish, and expressed
the conviction that the Southern
States should be permitted to re-
sumo their representation. They
knew it. 1t was not necessary for
the President to send Gen. Steed-
man through the South on tour
Of inspection. His report, which,
We assume, will be impartial, will
have no effect on that body, be-
cause it will further strengthen the
Presidents claim craftsmanship.
To suppose, therefore, that the
committee Of Fifteen, organized
for no other purpose than to foment
discord between the South and the
North, would report a plan, policy
or measure, or whatever you may
please to call it, either designed or
calculated to be healthy or healing,
is to suppose an absurdity that stu
pidity would be amazed at. The
committee has made its report. 1t
is given to the public this morning
through the telegraphic depart
ment, is not, therefore, necess-
ary to rehearse its language. Its
object is the disfranchisement of
the Southern white people and the
denial to them of representation in
Congress and the Withholding from
them of all voice in the election of
President and Vice President in
1868. This is what the Radicals
have been and are now driving at,
and il is because the President up
to this time has refused to become
a consenting party to a scheme so
nefarious, that they have denounced
him in the vilest of language.
Will the amendment reported by
the committee give peace to the
country? Will it reconcile those
people to their failure who were
identified with the secession move
ment? Thus far they have with
out murmm ing submitted to the
fate of war. They have decreed
the perpetual abolition of slavery;
they have repudiated the rebel war
debt; most of the States have ex-
tended to the negroes the same civ
il rights that white men enjoy. Our
people have secured far more than
they expected to secure when they
went to war with the Southern