Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1866-05-08
AnTndeDeudent Neyyspnpcr.

| In journal before us claiming support on
! the ground that it is "An Independent
Newspaper" wherein an explanation of the
disagreement between Congress and the
President is attempted. In conclusion, the
editor says: "Time will show which is the
wisest policy; but the Presidents true position
on the subject ought no longer TO be mtSunder-
stood" t.f. ,
Well, if "the Presidents true position on
the subject" of Reconstruction or Pacitca-
tion, is not known to a man whoundertakes
the work of conducting "An Independent
Newspaper" it is very clear that that man
has entirely mistaken his vocation. In De-
cember last, the President laid down his
"true position on the subject" in his first
Annual Message, and he has not budged
from it. That position was, that the
ordinances OF secession were vOid-that is,
they amounted to nothing; they did not take
the States out of the Union that had passed
them, nor make aliens of the people of those
States. The States, therefore, that had pass
ed those ordinances were in the Union, the
co-equals of all the other States in the Union
1t required no legislation, in the shape OF
| Joint resolutions, laws or Constitutional
amendments, to settle this matter. By the
success of our arms, the attemptto forcibly
take the Southern States out of the Union
had failed completely. The failure was
so thorough that it does not furnish sub
ject for disputation. 1t is true that the
failure of the forcible attempt to
take the Southern States out of the
Union, left the State Governments of
the iusurgent States in operation, and
to some it may appear-and the Radicals
now do make the direct charge-that the
| President, in appointing Provisional Gov
ernors, and requiring the Legislatures of
those States to rescind their ordinances of
secession, to ratify the Constitutional
amendment abolishing slavery, and to dis
claim all intention of paying the rebel war
debt, was usurpation of power on the
part of the President. If this we're true, it
is no reason why Congress and the Presi
dent should unite in a scheme of colossal
usurpation. 1t was, however, necessary
that the people of the insurgent States
should be required to rescind, by legisla-
tive proceeding, their ordinances of seces-
sion; for until this should be done they
continued to occupy an attitude of hostility
to the Federal Government, and it was as
legitimate to demand the surrender of this
attitude as it was for General GRANT to de-
mand the surrender of General LEE, or of
General SHERMAN to demand the surrender
of General JOE JOHNSTON.
President JOHNSON does not claim in his
annual message, that he had a right, either
through the claimed War power, or through
any other power, to demand of the insur-
gent States the adoption of the C2nstitu-
tional amendment abolishing slavery. 1t
was in Difference to the anti-slavery feeling
OF the North, that he suggested the pro-
priety of their doing so. He thought il
they were to do so in good faith, it would
be productive of incalcHable good to the
whole country. He was not insensible chat
it was a point the Southern people would
yield with reluctance and to reconcile
them to it he held out to them the induce
ment of general amnesty. Something of
this sort he considered necessary, and he
reasonably thought such an exchange,
while it would serve to indissolubly unite
the North and the South, involved no hui
initiation on either sile. In other words,
he sought to satisfy the anti-slavery feeling
of the North by extending clemency to the
Southern people who sought to establish
an Independent Confederacy wherein they
could be permitted to have African slavery,
without outside interference. There is no
ambiguity about this position, aud the
terms, if plainly, without appeals to Sec
tional hate or partisan prejudices, sub
mitted to the masses of the people, |
North and South, would be ratified with an |
earnest enthusiasm.
Upon the legality or loyalty of any Sem
ator or Representative from the South, the |
President did not and does not, arrogate to |
himself the right to pass. That is matter |
for the Senate and the House to pass judg-
ment upon, spectively-a right and power
with which he has not sought to interfere
but that Congress has no right to deny rep |
rcsentation to any State, he maintains with
immovable firmness; and, if the editor of
the Independent Newspaper" aforesaid
cannot understand this, "the Presidents
true position on the subject" we pity the
bluntness of his understanding.