The Conservative. (M'connelsville, Ohio) 1866-1871, 1866-08-10


States, and also the action of the Con.
vention about to assemble. Wherein
docs tho policy Of Congress differ from
the Presidents policy? IL is this.
Congress recognizes the right for the
people, in their primitive capacity, in
these States destroyed by tho rebels. to
make their own organic law, and sub
nit it to Congress, and leave it for
Congress to decide whether it be ION
sistcnt with the organic law of the Re
public. The Presidents policy seeks
not to leave this matter to tho people
in their primitive capacity, but to ig-
more the questions of the war, and 10
more the fact that the State ~organiza-
tons have been destroyed by eleven of
the States who took mp arms against
the Government.
In other words, Congress holds TINT
the States arc now as they have been
during the last four years, and that it
requires those people to mako their
constitutions anew, before they can re-
join their proper relation. The Pres
ident says all these States have n right
to send their Senators and Representa-
tivcs to Congress rs before. If this
were true they might have sent thom
during the war as well as now. The
rebels claim in effect that there has
been no war. But let them look around
at the desolation they have caused, and
they will sec their mistake. All loyal
men indorsc the policy Of Congress. It
i'll becomes the chivalrous men of the
South, as they call themselves, to talk
Of the injustice administered to them
by the Government of which they tried
to destroy. If they do not like the
Government, let them go to Brazil or
Mexico. They say they were over
powered. Have they Just found out
that in this country the prime princi-
pie is that the majority shall rule? At
the ballot-boX in 1860, they found that
the majority could rule, and then they
take it into their heads that although
the majority cold out-votc them, that
the minority could whip the majority.
But | suppose their statement, which
they have always made, that they
would die in the last ditch, has come to
pass. | suppose they arc all dead now
in tho last ditch. Does that make them
any better than the loyal black man
who has fought for his country?
/ say take the whole masses of the
colorcd people of Louisiana, and they
are better educated than the rebels are
NOT in Latin and Greek-but in poll
tics, and that is the necessary educa-
ton required by n voter. You have
learned two important lessons, to hate
slavery and to abhor treason. Moral
voters + more needed by the Gov
eminent now than intellectual voters.
Congress and the Convention
Of 1864 both favor universal suffrage.
We have now no Constitution in this
State, and you arc in your primitive
capacity. Then you have already nc
quired the right Of suffrage, you have
not got to acquired it. But you arc
hindcred in exercising it, and the
object Of the Convention is TO Wemovc.
those hinderanccs in conjunction with
your friends ut the North.
The speaker concluded by paying
tribute to the efforts made by Sumner,
Phillips and others at tho North in
the cause of universal suffrage, and as-
surfing his audience that their efforts
would not be in vain, and that the
great object before them would soon be
accomplished.