The New era. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1865-1871, 1866-10-11

the heavens, and to the maintenance of
which the Government had been com
PEELED, BY the nor Itself, to pledge it's ir-
revocable faith.
Within week after that proclamation
was issued the radicals brought forward
their plan of reconstruction, in the bill
OF Henry Winter Davis. 1t proposed,
as conditions precedent to restoration.
amendments to State constitutions pro-
hibiting slavery, repudiating the rebel
debt, (both which amendments all the
excluded States have since made, by the
advice of President Johnson,) and dis
franchising about one-fourth as many of
the leaders as the amendment now in
sisted by Congress proposes to disfran-
chise, and authorized the. President to
recognize such State governments only
after Congress had given its consent.
This bill President Lincoln refused to
sign, standing fast to his own plan of
unconditional restoration. He was forth
with assailed with a violence and rancor
only paralleled by the assaults of the
same men on President johnson. Wade
and Davis, who led the assault, denoun-
ced him, by manifesto, as guilty of
" dictatorial usurpation," and warned
him, in very much the tone of the
threats of impeachment now made
against President Johnson, that /" the
authority of Congress on the question
of restoration Is paramount, and must be
respected" A National Convention was
called, to meet in Cleveland, to nomi-
nate Fremont or Chase for President,
denOunce Mr.. Lincoln's policy of resto-
ration, and read him out of the party.
The call of that Convention sounds
like a blast from the bugle of Greeley
or Forney of to-day. Cheers and
laughter. Hear it,
6 The imbecile and vacillating policy
of the present administration, its treach-
cry to justice and freedom to its plan of
reconstruction, whereby the honor and
dignity Of the nation have been sacri-
feed in conciliating the arrogant slave
power and to further the ends of an I'M
scrupulous ambition, call in thunder
tones upon the lovers of justice and
their country to come to the rescue of
the imperiled nationality, and the cause
OF impartial justice and universal free
dom, threatened with betrayal and over
throw
1t is hard to realize the fact that this
thunderbolts was aimed at President
Lincoln, two years ago, instead OF Presi-
dent Johnson, this year. But the thun-
derbolt of to-day, are forged at the same
anvil, and hurled by the same hands, as
those which fell in noisy impotence at
the feet Of Abraham Lincoln.
Nearly all of the present radical lead
ers of Congress were VIGOROUSLY in full
sympathy with this movement, but only
a few of them were bold or rash enough
to commit themselves to it openly and
in advance. They knew Mr.. Lincoln's
high place in the hearts and confidence
Of the war party, and, though they then,
as now, had the organization of the
party in their hands, they halted and
banked when the issue came.
'Afraid
To be the same in their own act and valor,
As they were in desire"
Gratz Brown, Fremont, Wade, Davis,
Cochrane, Pomeroy, Wendell Phillips,
Moss, Fred. Douglass, and few hun
bred leaders of less note, "stood the
hazard of the die" A voice, Anna
Dickinson" No, Anna Dickinson did
moi respond to the call of the convention,
but Mrs. T.. Cady Stanton did, stating
she took it for granted, the callers of the
radical men of the natiOn,o used the
word men in its largest sense, and there
fore she responded. Laughter. The
convention nominated Fremont and
Cochrane, denounced the Presidents
restoration policy, claimed that all
power over the subject belongs to Con-
gress, and insisted on the disfranchise-
ment of all rebels, repentant and unre-
pentant, and the confiscation of all their
lands for our soldiers. Its platform was
pretty radical, but fell a bow shot short
of the radical platform of to-day, omit
ting, as it did, negro suffrage.
Then followed the convention of the
war party at Baltimore, which unani
mously endorsed President Lincoln's
policy, renominated him by reclamation,
admitted to seats and votes in the con-
vention the delegates chosen from Ar
kansas, Tennessee and Louisiana, which
had been recognized under his procla-
nation; and declared in a platform re-
ported by Henry j. Raymond, that the
only conditions of peace and reunion
shall be the unconditional surrender
of hostility by the rebels, und their re-
turn to their allegiance to the Consti-
tuition of the United States" TO make
its reputation of the theories of the
radical faction more marked, the con
vention nominated Andrew Johnson, of
Tennessee, for Vice President, against
tho ,,rotast ,,f that f,rfiOn LODI hx- thaI