The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1866-02-05
Feeling Of the Loyal Masses.

nx matter on all Four Pages.
Feeling Of the Loyal Masses.
AS much as we believe In our own personal
existence, do we believe that the loyal senti-
ment OF the country is irreversibly set agains
all measures intended for the rehabilitation Of
the late rebel States, until there is first secur
ed from those States the most ample guaran-
tees for the future, and the most unequiyocal
recognition of the civil and political rights of
all loyal men, and of their perfect equality
before the law. The loyal men of this nation
have had enough of blood, enough of war;
but if rebellion is not yet crushed out, if the
causes of the late rebellion are yet active, if
the evil which led to the war is not already
cut up by the tap roots and the roots extract
ed, they-the loyal people-will never be more
ready than now to take the matter in hand
and to slight it out on this line" of uncom-
promising hostility to everything like rebell-
ion and slavery. though it take not only all
summer but all of the present century
During the latter half of the late war the
implied pledge of the nation was solemnly
given to the world that the quarrel then in
hand, neither in whole nor in any of its parts,
should be bequeathed as legacy to posteitry.
That pledge should be faithfully redeemed.
And we insist, until man is as free to discuss
all political topics and, questions of political
economy in Mississippi as in Maine, in Savan-
nah and Charleston as under the shadow of
Bunker Hill monument, that the purposes for
which our war was carried on viii not be
fully accomplished. Such result was virtu-
ally promised in every call made for men and
money to put down the rebellion inaugurated
by the enemies of freedom and of free speech.
We believe the people endorse this idea, and
that they will be satisfied with nothing short
of its substantial realization. They have sac
ri6ced too much blood and treasure and impos.
ed upon themselves and their posterity too
heavy burden in the shape of debt and tax
alton, to consent for asingle moment to be de-
frauded of the legitimate fruits of the war; of
the common-sense rights which their great
and signal conquest entities them to enjoy.
1t is idle to spin fine speculations to the peo-
pie about State Rights and Constitutional
privileges; they know that they are superior
to all States and all Constitutions; that they
make the former and ordain the latter; that
both are the creatures Of their power, and that
the creature never was and never can be su-
peri0r to the creator. They know that no
fercer war was ever fought between alien en-
emies than we have just passed through, and
that fiends from the tabled pit of perdition
could not be more fendish, more vindictive,
more devilish than the enemy with which our
Union "boys" had to contend; and how su-
premely ridiculous to talk to them of the
rightsof that enemy, secured to him by a Con-
stitution which he so long trampled under foot
and scorned, and to destroy which he shed so
much blood That enemy has been conquer
ed,-conquered the same as any other enemy,
by sheer force of arms, and the people feel
that all the rights of conquest belong to them,
not the least Of which is the right to dictate
terms on which the conquered foe shall here
after enjoy civil and political privileges. The
people know that the South, by rebellion and
treason, forfeited euery right she ever enjoyed
under the Constitution; that the former rebel
States, when the rebellion was crushed, were
found without government or even the SEM
blance of a government that could be recog-
nized by the laws of the conquering party !;
that they were found inhabited by men who
had no right to even life itself that all had
incurred the penalties of treason; that they
were simply communities Of felons; and to
talk of their State rights Is as absurd, in the
estimation of the people, as it would be to
talk of the civil rights of the convicts In our
penitentiaries. The powers of the conquerors
to govern them, to dictate and prescribe all the
conditions of that government, were plenary,
and no fine spun theories of Democracy or of
Republicanism will drive this impression from
the common mind, and for the simple reason
that it is the impression of national COM
mon sense and common instinct. @,
We ask no one to endorse this doctrine; we
care not whether others take the same view
or not; we believe it nevertheless to be cor
rect, and the platform on which the people are
pledged to stand, and on which they ,ciu
stand, unless they are juggled out of their
rights and just prerogatives by politicians and
party diplomatists. o@ BRO l
We have been led into this train of remark
by reading capital article from the country
from the pure air Of "Old Oxford"-published
in the Paris Democrat, entitled "Look out for
Breaker" from which, in conclusion, VIE make
the following liberal extract: ts1 ''-
At no time during the rebellion and at no
time since its nominal close, has this govern
ment been surrounded with greater dangers
than at the present. 1t is true, the rebels have
laid down their arms and acknowledged them
selves beaten on the field of battle, but the re-
bettton is great way from being closed. Even
at this early day, only few months after the
termination Of armed hostilities, the rebels are
exhibiting everywhere the same impudence
and audacity that has marked their treasona-
course for the last thirty years. Just look
at the elections held in the revolted States. A
Union man who opposed secession and stuck
by the old flag, had no more chance of an cleo
tion, than he had of being struck with light
ming in Greenland. Even q man of moderate
Union proclivties could get comparatively no
votes. But whom did they vote for and who
Swept the board" and piled up majorities
mountains high? None but the vilest trail
tors, men who had helped starve to death and
murder our soldiers in those Southern hells,
called military prisons, men who ordered the
true Union men of the South incarceratel in
dungeons, whipped, led through the streets by
bowling, drunken mobs, gibbetted, hung, and
their dead bodies left unburied to be eaten bv
the dogs, men who trained blood hounds to
worry down and tear in pieces those Union
prisoners who escaped from Andersonvillc. Lib
by, and other Southern prisons. We repeat.
It was these men that got the votes, it was
these men who travelled to Washington
with the broad seals of their States in their
pockets, and with all the audacity of high
waymen, demanded to be admitted to seats in
our national Congress. to help make laws for
afree people. And these very same atrocious
villains, with their hands yet red with the
blood of murdered husbands, sons and broth
arg of tho Nortl, M, sxr,a c,ar;nv oro,,pd tho