Columbia democrat and star of the north. [volume] (Bloomsburg, Pa.) 1866-1867, 1866-06-20
Abolitionists and Abolitionism,

sentatives, the leader of the dlsunlonlsts,
Thad. Stevens, said
"Iwill not stultify myself by supposing
that we haveany warrant in the Constitu-
ton for this proceeding This talk of frestor
| ing the Union as it was, and under the Con-
stitution as it is, is one of the absurdties that
I have heard repeated until [ am sick of it.
The Union never shall, with my consent, be
restored under the Constitution as it is. {"
Yet in violation of his oath to support the
! Constitution he did all he could to sever the
! Old Dominion, and by the aid of his disunion
co-workers accomplished that gross outrage.
When he was in the reform Convention
| of Pennsylvania, In 1888, hewas bitterly OPP
posed to any change, or amendments to the
| State Constitution and among other things
said
'sBut why do | attemptto stay the ruthless
efforts of those who would tear up the deep
foundations of the government under which
Pennsylvania has so long prospered and be-
come great, happily and respected Its fate
is sealed. It is doomed instrument. The
destructires haze possession Of tltis hall. THIS
| Constitution tchIch aoiSe modern refornleTs
pronounced old, obsolete and decrepid, Is
bound hand and foot and deliuered orert to the
,1acisrcuDucised Philistines, andH toiU inertia
bLy be slOr7a of ats locksof strength unless the
I
be done here, it is my duty to warn the peo-
pie of the attempts nolo making to uHsettte
and confuse the La10S aohich hare so long pro-
tected them, that needy and desperate ddUeR-
tltrerS mag fatten on the pLlmder. l
have full confidence in steady and disinter-
ested people-Clisintereste as to the .fcLte of
parties, but deepb Interested ia the l0etfdre
oftte State and the protection Of the tves, the
liberty and the property Of ats citizens. Send
forth to them th5s n1Gngted, muttIated and
detornled Constitution, and they aCtU put
a.eir seal of condemnation upon 1t; and they
l0iU stiH tire and prosper under the l0ett-tried
charter aoltich their l0tse and honest fathers
LEFT them.
In view of all this we may ask, why does
this wretch and his corrupt company OF Con-
gressional tinkers now attempt to tear and
patch the National Constitution of our Fa-
theirs, under which, by Democratic rule, the
Republic long prospered and become great,
happy and respected simply because he is
traitor, as the President said in his speech
on the I'D of last February. But / enter
tain no doubt that the ''mangled, mutllated
and deformed Constitution, upon which he
and his followers have been testing the quail
ity OF their knives and strength of their
bludgeons, will find no favor among the
masses of the people (; but that they will
give united aud effective support to the
Union, and Andy } Johnson In his noble strug
gle to maintain inviolate the well-tried char
ter which their wise and honest Fathers left
them.
But the next traitor named by the Presi-
dent in the speech referred to above is Chas.
Sumner, from whom / could quote many
declarations that he owed no obedience to
the Constitution of the United States, but
will give one only, which is sufficiently ex-
plicit to serve as a specimen to the rest:
''Let me say that the Constitution of the
United States, as | understand it, exacts no
passive obedience, and no man, who Is not
wholly lost to self-respect and ready to aban-
don the manhood which is shown in the
heaven-directed countenance, viii voluntarily
aid in enforcing Judgment" which, In EIs
conscience, he solemnly believes to be against
the fundamental law. The whole dogma Of
passive obedience must be rejected-ln W hat
ever guise it may assume, and under what
ever alias it may skulk whether IN the ty-
rannical usurpation of King, Parliament, or
judicial tribunal. F"
Wendell Phillips, the third traitor named
by the President, and from whom gave
some extracts In my number ., published IN
your paper of May I'd, 1866, said In pub
lie speech Thank God for Mcclellan, for
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS OOQ Oelcdt. W lviA a
man for President, we should have put down
the rebellion in ninety days and left slavery
where it was.
This proves that he and his friends urged
on the war, not to preserve the Constitution
and the Union, but to destroy both, and thus
set the negroes free
Hence President johnson was just right
In calling those men traitors He could not
truthfully speak of them and call them any
thing else.
1t may be well to add, in this place, some
extracts from the speeches and writings Of
| the prominent apologists and defenders OF the
traitors explicitly named by the President.
Foremost among these is Mr.. Benjamin L.
Wade, who said, in 1860, referring to the
secession movements of the southern lead
ers
81 am not one of those who would ask
them to continue. in such a Union. 1t would
be doing violence to the platform of the par
ty to which / belong. We have adopted the
old Declaration of Independence as the basis
of our political movements, which declares
that men. when their Government ceases to
protect their rights-when 1T Is so subverted
from the true purposes of government as to
oppose them, have the right to recur to fun
damental principles, and, if need be, to de
stroy the Government under which they live,
and to erect on Its ruins another more con-
ducive to their welfare hold that they
have this right whenever they think the con-
t;ngency has come You cannot
forcibly hold men in this Union, for the at
tempt to do so, it seems to me, would sub
vert the first principles of the Government
under which we live.
Fred Douglass, under the auspices of Mr..
Chase, has recently undertaken to berate the
President for disloyalty. The qualifications
of this negro critic to sit in judgment on Mr.
johnson viii be understood by single SEN
tence taken from speech he made In New
York in 1850:
From this time forth, I consecrate the
labors OF my life to the dissolution of the
Union and ] care not Whetherthe bolt shall