Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1866-08-24
The Johnson Convention.

The great Philadelphia Convention, so
much talked Of and so loudly trumpeted
through the length and breadth of the land,
has had its gathering, done its work, and is
again mingling with the masses. The chief
copperhcads-V allandigham, Wood, and
Dean, being turned out into the cold. the
residue, if reports are TO be credited, were
as loving as Il litter of purring kittens.
Those reconstructed rebels from the sunny
South showed very different spirit from
that manifested at Washington a few years
ago, when naughty and defiant Senators and
Representatives, from that same sunny land
left their seats in Congress to take up arms
against the government Of which they had
been part, and which they had taken their
oaths TO protect and defend. Well, circum-
stances do alter cases. Five years Of war,
in which they were terribly beaten, their
leaders driven to the wall, their means ex-
hausted their power destroyed, their bogus
government scattered to the winds. have
brought them to n sense of their impotency
and so they put the best face on the matter
they can, and now profess to be good and
loyal men, ready to forget the past and quite
willing to have their sins forgiven. We hope
they are sincere in their professions, and that
their future course will give ample proof OF
the same. At any rate we are willing to
take them at their word, and put them on
probation, and when for sufficient time
they have given us assurance of their sin
cerity by their amended lives and their con-
tinuance in well doing, we shall not deny
them participation in and enjoyment of the
privileges of fellow citizens.
The following is their Declaration of Prin-
ciples, which, so far as they go, we sec moth
ing to object TO. They, however, remind us
of an answer once given to the question
"llow d id you like our preacher to-day?'
"oh! what he said was very good, but not
so good as what he did not sayn They are
as follows:-
ING national Union Convention, now assembled in
the city of Philadelphia composed of delegates from
every State and Territory in the Union, admonshed
by the solemn lessons which for tho last five years n
has pleased the Supreme Ruler of the Universe 10
give to the American people, profoundly grateful for
the return OF peace DESTROYS, as large majority of
their countrymen, in all sincerity to forget and for
give the past towering the Constitution as it comes 10
us from ancestors regarding the Union in its res
toraton more sacred than ever looking with deem
anxiety into the future Of instant and continuing
trial, here issues and proclams the following decara
ton of principles and purposes on which they have
with perfect unanimity agreed:
First. We hail with gratitude TO Almighty God tho
end OF war and the return Of peace to an afflicted and
beloved land
Second The war Just closed has maintained the au-
thorty Of the Constitution with all the powers which
it conlers, aud all the restrictions which 1t imposes
upon the General Government unabridged ard unal-
tered, and il has preserved the Union with the equal
rights dignity and authority Of tho States perfect and
unimpaired.
Third Representatives in the Congress of the Uni
ted States and in the Electoral College Is a right rec
ognized by the Constitution abiding in every State
and as duty imposed upon its people, fundamental
in It's nature and essential to the exercise of our re-
publican institutions, and neither Congress nor the
General Government has any authority or power to
deny this right to any, or withhold its enjoyment I'M