Sunbury American. [volume] (Sunbury, Pa.) 1848-1879, 1866-09-15

has no TlSuC Ut power 10 ASK mOTe tudn tWC
questions These are "Have these State.
organized governmental Are these govern
ments republican in form Z" The committee
proceed to say "How they were formed
under what auspices they were formed, arc
! inquiries with which Congress has no con.
cern. The right of the people to form q
4 government for themselves has never been
4 questioned. "ai On this principle President
lJohnsoEs labors in organizing State govern
I ments were works of supererogatiop. AT
the close ofactive hostilities the Rebel States
I had organized, though disloyal, governments
as republican IN form as they were before
the war broke out. The only thing, there
fore, they were required TO do was to send
their Senators and Representatives 20 wash
ington. Congress could not have rightfully
refused to receive them, because all questions
as to their being loyal or disloyal and as to
the changes which the war had brought in
the relations Of the States they represented
to the Union, were inquiries with which
Congress had no concern And here again
we have the ever-recurring difficulty respec-
ting the individuals" who were alone gull
ty of the acts of rebellion. "Ihe right of
the people," we are assured, ito form gov
ernment for themselves has never been
questioned" But 1t happens that "the peo-
who were before pointed out as alone re-
sponsible for the rebellion In the exercise
of their right ITO form government for
themselves" they rebelled; and now, it
seems, 10y the exercise of the same right,
they can Internationally return. There is
no wrong anywhere; 1t is all "right" The
people are first made criminals, in order to
exculpate the States, and then the innocence
of the States is used to exculpate the people.
When We see such outrages on common
sense gravely perpetrated by SO eminent
lawyer as the one who drew up the commit
tees report, one is almost inclined to define
minds as of two kinds, the legal mind and
the human mind, and to doubt if there is
any possible connection in reason between
the two To the human mind it appears
that the Federal Government has spent
.hirty five hundred millions of dollars, and
sacrificed three hundred thousand lives, in
contest which the legal mind dissolves into
mere mist of unsubstantial phrases; and
by skill in the trick of substituting words
for things, and definitions for events, the
legal mind proceeds to show that these words
and definitions, though scrupulously shield
cd from any contact with realities, are sufli
cient to prevent the nation from taking Or
dinary precaution against the recurrence of
phrase estate Rights" translated from legal
into human language, is found to mean the
power to commit wrongs on individuals
whom States may desire'to oppress, or the
power to protect the inhabitants of States
from the consequences of their own crimes
The minority cf the committee, indeed,
seem to have forgotten that there has been
any real war, and bring to mind the conver-
ted Australian savage whom the missionary
could not make penitent for murder con-
mitted the day before, because the trihing
occurrence had altogether passed from his
recollection. Sd 1''.
In fact, all attempts to discriminate be-
tween rebels and rebel States, to the advan-
tage of the latter, are done in defiance of
notorious facts. If the rebellion had been
merely rising of individual citizens of
States, it would have been an insurrection
against the States, as well as against the
Federal Government, and might have been
easily put down. In that case, there would
have been no withdrawal of Southern Sena-
tors and Representatives from Congress, and
therefore no question as to their inherent
right to return. In Missouri and Kentucky,
for example, there was civil war, waged by
inhabitants of those States against their
local governments, as well as against the
United States; and nobody contends that
the rights and privileges OF those States
were forfeited by the criminal acts of their
citizens. But the real strength Of the rebel
lion consisted in this, that it was not a re-
belliOn AGAINST States, but a rebellion BY
States. No loose assemblage Of individu-
ais, though numbering hundreds of thou
sands, could long have resisted the pressure
of the Federal power anG the power of the
State governments They would have had
no means of subsistence except those de-
rived by plumber and voluntary contribu-
tions, and they would have lacked the mill
tary organization by which mobs are trans
formed into formidable armies. But the
rebellion being one of States, being virtually
decreed by the people of States assembled
in convention, was sustained by the two
tremendous governmental powers of taxation
and conscription. The willing and the un-
willing were thus equally placed at the dis
position of strong government. The popu-
region of country in which the rebellion
prevailed were at the service of this govern.
ment. So completely was it a rebellion of
States, that the universal excuse of the
minority of original Union men for entering
heartily into the contest after it had once
begun was, that they thought it their duty
to abide by the decision, and share the for
tunes of their respective STATES. Nobody
at the South believed at the time the war
commenced, or during its progress, that his
State possessed any continuous" right to
participation in the privileges of the Fed
eral Constitution, the obligations of which
it had repudiated. When confident of sue
cess, the Southerner scornfully secuted the
mere suspicion of entertaining such de-
grading notion when assured, of defeat, his
only thought was to "get his State back
into the Union ON the best terms that could
be madep The idea of conditions of re-
admission" was as firmly fixed in the South
ern as in the Northern mind. II the politi
clans of the South now adopt the principle
that the rebel States have not, US States,
ever altered their relations to the Union,
they do it from policy, finding that its adop-
tion will give them rbetter terms" than they
ever dreamed Of getting before the President
of the United States taught them that it
would be more polite 10 bully than toplead.
+ In the last analysis, indeed, the theory of
the minority of the Reconstruction Commit
tee reduces the rebel States to mere abstrac-
| tions. 1t is plain that a State, in the con-
crete, rs constituted by that portion of the
inhabitsnt who form its legal people, and
that, In passing back Of its government and
constitution, We reach o convention of the
legal people as its ultimate expression. BY
such conyentions the acts of secession were
/ n q l.. ..ft tl.a