The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1866-05-25

ing, and the leading men Of the General Az.
sembly are taking part in it. DR.. THoxAs,
who spoke on the Breckenridge side, was fol.
lowed BY Dr.. BoARDnAS, Who stands npos
the Van Dyke platform. SAN GALLOWAY
spoke in reply to BoARDiAN yesterday and
in the progress Of the discussion we presume
the test talent in the Assembly will be heard
on one side or the other.
NH. SEW ARDS spEECH.
We publish the main, striking and impor.
tant passages of the report Of Secretary Sew.
ards recent speech at Auburn:
| Ny Coop FRIENDs-Since we last INST the
national condition has undergone some ma
terial changes. We were then on the verge
of series Of elections throughout the States.
The leaders, who SO pompously claimed to be
Democrats organized with their customary
machinery and ovations. They had wisely
ceased to denounce as failure the war for
the Union which had at last become a glori
Gus success. They thought to undermine the
distinctive party of the Union by affecting q
new born admiration for its chief Andrew
johnson. They seemed anxious to prove
| their devotion superior to ours by committing
themselves to support him as candidate for
the Presidency in 1868. They inscribed our
administration notices ofreconcilliation upon
their newly-wrought banners, and, reorgan-
izing their struggling lines as we'll as they
could, they vehemently charged onward for q
partisan, not patriotic victory. What led
the Democratic leaders to make this charge
was the striking, may call il the marvellous
phenomenon which was Just then exhibited on
the scene Of the recent rebellion-the whole
dlsloyal community in that blighted and des-
olated region accepting the conditions Of par
tial amnesty and the invitations to returning
allegiance, which we're proclaimed by the ad-
ministration. All at once, renouncing the
principles, practices and policy of secession
nant Of loyalty, sealed with their oaths, and
brought forward with alacrity the remains Of
their long cherished institution of slavery,
and cheerfully threw them to be burned upon
the Constitution altar which they had 30 new
ly restored. These unexpected changes in
the attitude OF political advocacy, at once so
absolute naturally enough excited suspicious
jealousies and apprehensions among loyal,
tried Union men.
After enforcing and illustrating the policy
and necessity Of conciliation, amnesty and
restoration of civil rights and political priv
leges to discounted rebels, by historical ex-
amples, and presented most favorable view
of the effect of the Presidents policy in the
late rebel States, and congratulating his hear
ers on the hopeful indications of peace and
prosperity, he proceeded to say:
The feature Of affairs which disturbs the
public mind is supposed divergence between
the President and Congress from the party
from which he and they have derived their
respective but CO. ,rdinate powers. | agree
that it is altogether easier, and altogether
more desirable that the work of reconciliation,
SO happily begun and so successfully prosecu-
ted heretofore, shall be continued and ended
under the auspices Of the national union par.
ty, and of the President and congress as the
representatives Of that party. Iargue, there
fore, that It would be sad misfortune If .
divergence between the President and Con-
gress should work decline and the downfall
of the national union party It's dear to me,
forI am identified with its rapid rise, its
mighty progress and its glorious work Both
the President and Congress might well expect
to be equally in the calamity which should
dismiss the union party from the national
councils, and see with modification the great
responsibilities to which the party had, in
that case, proved itself unequal, assumed
and discharged by some new and yet unqual-
ihed political organization. But the Pres-
dent, Congress, statesmen and parties are Of
no real account, in my essimation, when
weighed against the national life. The ma
tional lately hung on the issue Of victory
won in war. 1t now hangs on the issue OF
reconciliation in peace. The nation must
live. 1t must live forever, whether it re ceiye
the needed care in any emergency at the
hands of one President, Congress and party,
or at the hands of another. l reasoned in
this way about the triumph of the war
reason in the same way now in regard to rec
onciliation and peace. | expect that a year
hence | shall be found to be right now, as
am now admitted to have been right one
year, two years, three years ago. do not
think, however, that there is any necessity for
separation between the President the Con-
gress, and the party OF the union. | admit
that the jealousies and suspicious of the last
| summer we're only temporarily allayed, not
They have been sedulously cherished and in
creased until they have revealed themselves
in inlammatory debates in the press and pop
ular assemblies.
l admit that the national union party in
Congress has as yet been unable either to ac-
cept or reject the councils Of the President.
A wide and enduring separation cannot, how
ever, be made between Congress and the
President without having for its groove . se-
rious difference upon some cardinal political
question.
At this point it will be well to settle for
yourselves what it is tnat We are desiring to
see effected by the President and Congress-,
we all agree that we desire and seek Just what
| the nation needs at the present juncture. We
cannot accept less than this, because it would
| leave us still if not desolated at least dis
turbed and distracted cagutry. We cannot
require laore, because even it more were de-
sirable yet that more is debatable, and must
not be the study and the work of ourselves at
| this particular period but of ourselves and our
| successors hereafter. What then does the
country actually need? Most persons say
thing. The country IS reconstructed already
| It was constructed in 1897 ; ss then construct
cd it was Union Of thirteen, eince multipl-
ed to thirty-six free, equal, separate, self
acting, and, in regard to internal Affairs,
self governing, States. We do not reconstruct
that which has not been destroyed. There
has indeed been an attemptat the destruction,
but it has failed. The political system of 1887,
| constructed by our forefathers, stands now
| 6rm, compact, complete and perfect, Just a.
| il came from the builders hands. It was
| constructed not for eighty years only, nor yet
| for period of civil war only. but for Ill
changing conditions of peace and war, for all
ages and for oil time.
Others say what the country needs is the
restoration Of the anatomy Of the nation. /
think it needs no such thing. We have pas
sed that point. The Southern States during
four years, we're desanged and disorganiEed
equally in their constit1tional relations TO the