North Branch democrat. [volume] (Tunkhannock, Pa.) 1854-1867, 1866-09-05

when anv State should adopt the amend
ments of the Constitution as to civil rights,
basis of representation, mellgibility to of
flee, and the public debt, and should modify
their State laws to suit these new condi-
tions, their members, after taking the odi-
Gus test oath, might be admitted. This bill,
however, was killed, l0l to 35. Thus, no
conditions for the admission of States iG the
form OF bill, not even the atrocious ones
proposed, were adopted. (3.981,) So
that after eight months of patient incuba-
tion the only egg laid, over which there
has oeen sDImuch cackling, is this Tennes-
see fiasco. The whole question remains as
open as it was in December, 1865, when
Mr. Speaker saw all the stars, only little
paler by rebellion, growing brighter,
and the chaplains thanked God for the ac-
ceptable year of thoroughly renovated
Republic!
... CONCLUSION.
Thus, in conclusion, turned to the
overmastering problem for the people to
solve. Shall Congress lead these eleven
States through the indefinite future captives
to make an abolition holiday; or shall an
other Congress, aiding the President, en-
large them in. the liberty of independent
and self reliant stateshood?
The historian of Rome draws something
from his imagination when he pictures the
proud Queen of Palmyra, Zenobia, array
ed in purple. yet loaded with golden chains
to aggrandize the: procession in honor of the
conqueror of Asia. 1t needs no imagina-
tion to picture the fate of eleven States,
not of foreign origin, but Of one blood, Ian
guage, history and religion, following with
downcast eye the triumphant chariot of
congressional power! States whose area
is over 725,000 square miles; larger than
England, France, Spain, Portugal and all
Germany; having a population of 10000,
600; whose annual product from little
pod is greater than the wealth in which
the Roman bore in his stately galleys to
Rome from the golden and jeweIled Orient!
Cheers. Virginia, too proud, perhaps,
but with such a grandeur of great names on
her rolls; the Caroiinas, weary of their
waywardness, but still the home of the
Pinckneys. who gave the Constitution to
America, and of those who at ~Mecklen-
burg anticipated the Declaration which at
Kings Mountain consummated our Inde-
pendence; Georgia, Florida, Alabama,
Mississippi, whose feet are kissed by the
Waters of thousand rivers, which, rolling
through the valley of the Mississippi, gath
er their volumes of wealth from Minnesota
to Louisiana; these are the subject States
led in fctters at the car of this Imperial
Congress. (Cheers.) Such exhibitions dis
honOred the greatness of even Pagan Rome;
they would not be tolerated by ambitions
France, which takes Venetia as gift from
the Kaiser only to set in ajewel in the crown
OF a united Italy. (Cheers) 1t might
find its counterpart in the great land ami
NAL of the North-Russla-in whose en-
brace PROSTATE Poland groans. Forget
ting her own grasp of Ireland, England as
sumes to be Mortified at the spectacle. Ev
en- in Turkey, the policy of strangling bro.
thers by the sultan no longer makes the
traveller shudder as he crosses the Bospho-
rus. But for this Christian land of Amer
lea, the people do not ask such a mockery
of triumph and such degradation of pow
er. (Cheers.) They will write the epitaph
of the Congress which proposes it in letters
Of fire; "Here lies the fragment Of the
thirty-ninth American Congress, which,
starting with furtivc conspiracy against
the President, with opportanities1never
before vouchsafed for blessing,it postponed
the Union; and putting the nation in peril
of another civil war, it died under the just
indignation of an aroused people, and is
damned to an Immortality of infamy?'--
[Cheers. A.. .