Cedar Falls gazette. [volume] (Cedar Falls, Iowa) 1860-1895, 1866-10-05
9oliticat.
70 THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.
Address or the National Republican
COnmittcc-A Strong Document. 50,
The Issues Fairly and Bold.
..ss .r- gr ly Stated T..

fa.f' 80 III .
..a4 .t. 81 ly Stated f. ~.
FELLOW CITIZENS Very grave diff
ferences having arisen between your
immediate Representatives in Congress
and the President, who owes his posi-
tion to your votes, we are impelled to
ask your attention thereto, and to sug-
gest the duties to your country which
they render imperative.
We shall avoid the use of hard words.
or these there have already been too
many. And that the matters i'm issue
may be brought within the narrowest
compass. let us first eliminate from the
controversy all that has already been
settled or has never been In dispute. aa
The Republic has been desperately
assailed from within, and its very ex-
istence seriously imperiled. Thirteen
States were claimed as having with
drawn from the Union, and were rep
resented for years in hostile Congress,
meeting at Richmond. Ten of these
States were, for time, wholly in the
power Of hostile Confcdcracy, the
other three partially SO. The undoubt-
edly loyal States were repeatedly and
formidably invaded by rebel armies,
which were only expelled after obsti-
nate and bloody battles. Through four
years of arduous, desperate civil strife,
the hosts of the rebel COnfederacy
withstood those of the Union. Agents
of that Confedcracy travcrsed the civil
lied world, seeking allies in their war
against the Republic, and inciting the
rapacious and unprincipled to fit out
armed corsairs to prey upon her com
mcrcc. BY State authority, and in the
perverted names Of patriotism aud 10y
atty, hundreds Of thousansd of our
countrymcn were conscripted into rcb-
cl armies, and made to fight desperate
ly for our national disruption and ruin.
And though, by the blessing Of God
and the valor and constancy Of our 10y
al people, the rebellion was finally and
utterly crushed, it did not succumb un.
Z
than half million of precious human
lives, not to speak of property to the
value Of at least five hundred millions
of dollars.
At length, the rebel armies surren-
dered, and the rebel power utterly col
lapsed and vanished. What then?
The claim of the insurgents that they
either now re-acquired or had never
forfeited their Constitutional rights i'm
the Union, including that of represen-
tation in Congress, stands i'm pointed
antagonism alike to the requirements
of Congress and to those of the acting
President 1t was the Executive alone,
who, after the rebellion was no more,
appointed Provisional Governors for
the now submissive, unarmed South
ern States, on the assumption that the
rebellion had been Revolutionary"
and had deprived the people under its
sway Of all civil government, and who
required the assembling of "a con ven-
tion, composed Of delegates to he chos-
ell by that portion of the people Of said
Statewide ara loyal to the United States,
and no others, for the purpose of alter
ing and amending the Constitution of
said State" 1t was President Johnson
who, SO late as October last-when all
shadow Of overt resistance to the I'm
ion had long since disappcared-insist-
ed that it was not enough that State
which had revoltcd must recognize her
ordinance of secession as null and void
from the beginning, and rntify the
constitutional amendment prohibiting
slavery cvermorc, but she must also re-
pudiate "cvcry dollar of Indebtedness
created to aid in carrying on the re-
bcllion." 1t was he who ordered the
dispersion by military force of any
Legislature chosen under the rebellion
which should assure power to make
laws after that rebellion had fallen.
1t was he who referred to Congress all
inquiries as to the probability Of repre-
scntatives from the States lately in re-
volt being admitted to seats in either
house, and suggested that they should
present their credentials, not at the or
ganization Of Congress, but afterward.
And finally, il wns he, and not Con-
gress, who suggested to his Governor
Sharkey, Of Mississippi, that
''If you could extend the elective franchise
to all persons ofco!or who can read the Const-
t;Itiou ~ the United states in English and
write their names. and to all persons Of color
who own real estate valued at not less than
S2i9 md nay taxes thereon. YOU would con-
ample tina: other states Will follow"
IF, then, there be any controversy as
to the right Of the loyal States to exact
conditions and require guarantees of
those who plunged madly into seces-
sion and rebellion, the supporters re-
spectiyely of Andrew johnson and OF
Congress cannot be antagonistic parties
to that contest, since their record plac-
es them on the same side.
1t being thus agreed that conditions
of restoration and guarantees against
future rebellion may be exacted of the
States lately in revolt, the right Of Con-
grcss to voice in prescribing those
conditions and in shaping those guar
antces is plainly incontestible. Wheth.
er it take the shape of law or Of Con.
stitutional amendment, the action Of
Congress is vital. Even If they were
TO be settled by treaty, the ratification