Bradford reporter. [volume] (Towanda, Pa.) 1844-1884, 1866-11-01

johnson convention asserted the equality
of the johnson reconstructions Of States
with the States now represented in Con
gress. The object was to give some ap.
pearance of legality to a contemplated act
of arbitrary power, and the principle that
insurgent States recover all their old rights
! by the fact of submission was invented in
order to cover the case Mr. johnson now
intends, by the admission of his partisans,
to attempt coup d'etat on the assembling
of the Fortieth Congress, in case seventy
one members of the House of Representa-
tives, favor BILE to his policy, are chosen,
in the elections of this autumn, from the
twenty-six loyal States. These, with the
| fifty Southern delegates, would constitute
"a quorum of the house and the remaining
hundred and nineteen members are, in the
Presidents favorite phrase, to be kicked
out from that verge" of the govern
ment on which they now are said to be
hanging" The question, therefore, wheth
er Congress, as it is at present constituted,
is a body constitutionally competent to
egislate for the whole country, is the most
important of all practical questions. Let
us see how the case stands.
The Constitution, ratified by the people
of all the States establishes government
OF tsovereign powers supreme over the whole
land, and the people of no State can rightly
pass from under its authority except by the
consent of the people o. all the States, with
whom it is bound by the most solemn and
binding of contracts. The rebel States broke
IN fact the contract they could not break IN
right Assembled in conventions of their
people, they passed ordinances of secession,
withdrew their Senators and Representa-
tives from Congress, and began the war by
assailing a iurt of the United States The
secessionists had trusted to the silence of
the Constitution in relation to the act they
performed. A State in the American Union,
as distinguished from territory. is consti-
tutionally q part Of the Government to
which it owes allegiance, and the seeded
States had refused to be parts of the Gov
ernment, and had forsworn their allegiance
By the Constitution, the United States, in
cases Of domestic violence" in State, is
to interfere, con application of the Legisla-
ture, or OF the Executive, when the Legisla-
ture cannot be convened" But in this case
legislatures, executives, conventions of the
people, were all violatOrs of the domestic
peace, and of course made no application
for interference By the Constitution, Con-
gress is empowered to suppress insurrec-
tions but this might be supposed to mean
Instructions like Shay's rebellion in Mas
sachus IT, and the Whiskey insurrection i'll
Pennsy ylvania, and not to cover the action
of States seeding from the Congress which
is thus empowered. The seceders, there
fore, felt somewhat as did the absconding
James II when he flung the great seal into
the Thames, and thought he had stopped
the machinery Of the English government.
Mr. Buchanan, then President of the Uni
ted States, admitted at once that the seces-
sionists had done their work in such a way
that, though they had done wrong, the Gov
ernment was powerless to compel them to
do right. And here the matter should have
rested, if the Government established by
the Constitution was such a Government as
Mr.. JOhnson's supporters now declare it to
be If it is impOtent to prescribe terms of
peace III relation TO insurgent States, it is
certainly impOtent to make war on insur-
gent States. If insurgent States recover
their former constitutional rights in laying
down their arms, then there was no crimi-
nality IN their taking them up !; and if there
was no crilniuality IN their taking them up,
then the United States was criminal in the
war by which they were forced to lay them
down. On this theory we have a govern
mcnt incompetent TO legislate for insurgent
States, because lacking their representa-
tives, waging against them a cruel and un-
Just war. And this is the real theory of
the defeated rebels and Copperheads who
formed the great mass of the delegates to
the Johnson convention. Should they get
into power, they would feel themselves log
ically justified in annulling not only all the
acts OF the "Rump Congress" since they
Congresses during the time they had Con
federate Congress Of their own. They may
deny that this is their intention but what
intention to forego the exercise of an as
sumed right, held by those who are out of
power, can be supposed capable Of limiting
their action when they are in?
But if the United States is a government
having legitimate rights of sovereignty con-
ferred upon it by the people of all the States,
and if, consequently, the attempted seces-
sion of the people of one or more States
only makes them criminals, without impair
ing the sovereignty of the United States,
then the Government with all its powers,
remains with the representatives Of the 10y
al people. By the very nature of govern
ment as government, the rights and privi-
leges guaranteed to citizens are guaran-
teed to loyal citizens the rights and priv
ileges guaranteed to States are guaranteed
to loyal States and loyal citizens and 10y
al States are not such as profess willing
ness to be loyal after having been utterly
worsted in an enterprise of gigantic disloy-
atty. The organic unity and continuity of
the Government would be broken by the
return of disloyal citizens and rebel States
without their going through the process of
being restored by the action of the Govern
ment they had attempted to subvert and
the power to restore carries with it the
power to decide on the terms of restoration
And when we speak of the Government we
are not courtly enough to mean by the ex-
preston simply its executive branch. The
question of admitting an implicitly of resto-
ring States, and of deciding whether or not
States have republican form of govern
ment, are matters left by the Constitution
to the discretion of Congress. AS to the
rebel States now claiming representation,
they have succumbed, thoroughly exhaus-
ted, in one of the costliest and bloodest