The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1866-08-28

the principle that the rebel States have
not, as States, ever altered their rela,
tions to the Union, they do it from pol.
icy, finding that its adoption will give
them "better terms" than they ever
dreamed of getting before the President
OF the United States taught them that il
would be more polite to bully than to
plead.
In the last analysis, indeed, the the.
ory of the minority of the ReconStruc-
tion Committee reduces tho rebel States
to mere distractions. 1t is plain that a
State, in the concrete, is constituted by
that portion of the inhabitants who
form its legal people; and that, in pass
ing back of its government and consti-
tuition, we reach convention of the
legal people as its ultimate expression.
By such conventions the acts of seces-
sion were passed.; and. as far as the
people of the rebel States could do it,
they destroyed their States considered as
organized communities forming a part
of the United States. The claim of the
United States to authority over the ter
ritory and inhabitants was, of course,
not affected by these acts; but in what
condition did they place the people ?
Plainly in the condition of rebels en-
gagged inan attempt to overturn the
Constitution and government of the
United States. AS the whole force of
the people in each of the rebel commu-
mites was engaged in this work. the
whole of the people were rebels and
public enemies. Nothing was left, i'll
each case, but an abstract State, with
out any external body, and as desti-
tute Ofpeople having the privileges of
the Constitution as if the territory had
been swept CLEAN of population by a
pestilenCe. 1t is, then, only this alb
a Stofn ~ I1ipI hoe a isYl,t to
sentatfOn in Congress. But how can
there be right to representation when
there is nobody to be represented? All
this may appear puerile, but the puer-
ility is i'll the promises as well as in the
logical deductions, and the premises
are laid down as indisputable constitu-
tional privileges by tho eminent jurists
who supply ideas for the National
Union party.
The doctrine of the unconditional
right of the rebel States to representa-
ton being thus n demonstrated absur-
dity. the only question relates to the
conditions which Congress proposes to
impose. Certainly those conditions, as
embodied in the constitutional amend
ment which has passed both houses of
Congress by such overwhelming major
tiles, are the mildest ever exacted of
defeated enemies by victorious ma
ton. There is not n distinctly "radical"
idea in the whole amendment-nothin
that President Johnson has not himself
within a comparatively recent period,
stamped with his high appreciation.
Does it ordain universal suffrage? No.
Does it ordain impartial suffrage? No.
Does it prescribe, diSfranChise, or expa-
triate the recent armed enemies of the
country, or confiscate their property?
No. 1t simply ordains that the nation
al debt shall be paid and the rebel debt
TnF infn a., tlN,t nfY .ir-E,
persons shall be maintained; that rebels
who have added perjury to treason
shall be disqualified for office; and that
the rebel States shall not have their po-
litiCal power in the Union increased by
the presence on their soil of persons to
whom they deny political rights, but
that representation shall be based
throughout the Republic on voters, and
not on population The pith of the
whole amendment is in the last clause;
and is there anything in that to which
reasonable objection can be made?
Would it not be Il curious result of the
war against rebellion, that it should end
in comforting on rebel voter in South
Carolina power equal, in national
affairs, to that OF two loyal votors in
New York? Can any Democrat have
the face to assert that the South should
have, through its disfranchised negro
freemen alone, power in the Electoral
College and in the national House of
Representatives equal to that of the
States of Ohio and Indiana combined?
Yet these conditions, so COnciliatory,
moderate, lenient, almost timid, and
which, by the omission ofimpartial suf-
frage, fall very far below the require
mentS of the average sentiment of the
loyal nation, are still denounced by the
new party of "Union" as the work of
furious radicals, bent on destroying
n 1-Jfr g Of fntn
nor James L. Orr, of South Carolina,
pardoned into Johnsonian man, i'm
plores the people of that region to send
delegates to the Philadelphia Conven-
ton, on the ground that its purpose is
to organize conservative" men, of all
sections and parties, "to drive from
power that radical party who are daily
traIhpling under foot the Constitution,
and fast converting constitutional
Republic into Il consolidated despOt-
ISM" The terms to which South Caro-
lima is asked to submit before she can
be made equal to Ohio or New York in
the Union, are stated to be too degrad-
ing and humiliating to be entertained
by freeman for single instant.
When we consider that this radical
party" constitutes nearly four-tifthS of
the legal Legislature of the nation, that
it was the party which saved the coun-
try from dismemberment while Mr..
Orr and his friends were notoriously
engaged in 'trampling tho Constitution
under foot" and the man who de-
nOunces it owes his forfeited life to its
clemency, tho astounding insolence of
the impeachment touches the sublime,
Here is confessed treason inveighing
against tried loyalty, in the name of
the constitution it has violated, and the
law it has broken! But why does Mr..
Orr think the terms ofSOuth Carolina's
restored relations to the Union "too de-
grading and humiliating to be enter
tanned by freeman for n single in
stantT" Is it because he thinks it intol-
erable that negro should have civil
rights? Is it because he resents the
idea that breakers of Oaths, like him
self, should be disqualified from having
another opportunity of forsWearing
themselves? ? Is it because he considers
that a white rebel freeman of South
Carolina has a natural right to exercise
double the political power of IL white
loyal freeman of Massachusetts,? He
must return an affirmative answer to
all these questions in order to make it
out that his State will be. degraded and
fumiliated by ratifying the amend
ment; and the necessity of the measure
is theresOre proved by the motives
known to prompt the attacks of its viii
lifierS.
The insolence of Mr.. Orr is not mere
ly individual, but representative. It is
the result of Mr.. Johnson's attempt "to
produce harmony between the two sec
tions" by betraying the section to which
he owed his election. Had it not been
for his treRchery there would have been
little difficulty in settling the terms of
peace, so as to avoid all causes for fu-
ture war; but, from the time he quar-
relied with Congress, he has been the
great stirrer-up of disaffection at the
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