Weekly Trinity journal., 1866-05-12
From the Sacramento Bel
A New Kink In the Consuiraev

Political affairs at the capital of the nation are
| assuming widely different guise from that they
have usually worn. Nominally, our elections
are controlled by the honest indication of nnhlic
opinion at the ballot-box, and public questions
are decided by the will of the majority. but tbe
modern race of Presidents have established a
new precedent, and the appeal to the knife the
rife and the burning brand is the resource Of the
defeated party threat to deluge the country
in blood is the usual crowning argument of The
new school of political constructionists. who arc
encouraged in their incendiary views bv n cor
tain class of men at the North-writinp. evident
ly, from Southern point of view-in the hone
of obtaining future advancement If ever a time
should arrive when civil war invades the smil.
ing fields and peaceful fresides of the Northern
States it will be the fault of the authors ofsuch
paragraphs as the following, which we find in a
late copy of the New York Times =" While most
of the propositions are just and sound, the lead
ing purpose of the report on Reconstruction.
namely, the election of the next President hv a
divided Union, is monstrously unjust, unwise and
impracticable, and if persisted in by CONGRESS-
wH lead to disastrous consequences" The Times
speaks as though it was really persuaded that
the rebellious States had been kept out of the
Union by the Government, when precisely the
opposite is the case. We had supposed the stlead-
ing purpose of the Committee to be the weed
ing out of traitors, so that the Southern States
might be brought once more into fraternal rela-
tions with the Union on equal footing with
the North. That the Union is nominally q divi-
ded " is not the fault of the North, it is quite
clear. Should the Southern politicians persist
in their mulish conduct, adsastrous consequence
may, indeed, result for them; for Government,
exercising its supreme authority, backed by all
the true loyal people of the country, may seize
upon the fomentorS of disturbance, drive them
into lasting exile, and supply the South with
officials concerning whose loyalty there can be
no question. Meanwhile, the new game of party
ostracism goes on quite briskly, and official
heads are falling rapidly under the guiotine,
while the Senate steadily pursues its policy of
suspending or rejecting the Presidents apont-
ments. 1t is the will of one man, and he an old
pro-slavery sympathzer, against the voice of the
nation.
We are walking over slumbering volcano.
Signs and portents have been of hourly
renee, yet the people are Indifferent. Among 9TH
er journals the San Jose Mercury is fearless and
outspoken, protesting its ability to see wherein
leader whose whole aim appears to be to recon-
struct the Union upon Southern foundation,
and who denounces as 4" ours " the representa-
tive men of the great loyal North, differs from
JEFF. Davis Lee, or his old friend Breckinrdge.'
The earnestness with which, as Southern Breck-
inridge Democrat, he despised the North and its
opinions before the rebellion is called to mind
and the Tennesseean swagger ofhis conduct duly
reprobated. The Mercury is one of the few news
papers in the land that dares tell the truth. A
letter from friend at Washington declares
that
"The worst not The deepest reachery which
yet attempted has been plotted and is in Of
being carried by people
and his guilty conederates Among the latter too
to be numbered of those who had they died before this
disgrace might regulations their graves
The country will be startled by still greater evidences
of conspiracy to defeat the popular WILL after that will had
been educated right at the national cost We
shall whether the devil shall rule the devils be ruined
have faith though the days dark that right perhaps
after dnoer body iidl will triumph But tell If the
worst shall and civil again shall its terrible
front before u.s. ii icu not be ended until fnished"
Eternal Vigilance is the price of liberty. May
the nation heed the warning already given, and
be prepared to meet the new emergency