The Nashville daily union. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1862-1866, 1866-04-07
The Radicals and the Civil Rights


Bill.
WASHINGTON, April l, 1S66.-The po-
sition of the Radicals in Congress con-
corning the so-cslled Civil Rights Bill
affords much food for reflection on the
instability of all things human, espe-
cially opinions, and confirms the truth
of the old maxim, that the times
change, and men change with the
! times, or, as Mr.. Summer would proba-
bly, express it, in the muddy meta
physics of Carlyle, "0urs is q most fc-
tile world, and man is the most fingent
plastic Of creatures" The penal pros
visions of this bill are copied, many of
them literally and all of them substan-
TALLY, from the Fugitive Slave Law of
1850. What that law prescribed as a
punishment for those who refused to
become man-cstchers and kidnappers,
this law deals out to those who attempt
to enforce any distinctions on account
of color The Fugitive Slave Law was
denounced by Chase, Wade, Giddings,
and men of that school, as unconstitu-
tional, not because it provided for the
return of runaway slaves, but because
in its operations it violated the re-
served rights of the States, and subor-
dinated State Courts in an unconstitu-
tional manner to Federal Courts-be-
cause it provided for the arrest of a judge
who attempts to enforce Personal Liber-
ty bills, etc. Why will not the same OBJ
jections hold good against the Civil
Rights, and the very same provisions
which were so bad fifteen years ago? 1t
is not denied by conservative men that
the negroes ought to have all the rights
attempted to be conferred upon them
by this last radical measure; neither
was it denied by the Republicans, in
1850 that STAKEHOLDER had right to
recover his fugitive negro. The Re-
publican party, as a party, never dis
puted the constitutionslity of the OBJ
lect for which the Fugitive Slave Law
was framed, but they howled against
the mode in which it was proposed TO
be done as an invasion of the sacred
rights of States, and 8 usurpation of
power never delegated to the General
Government So the Conservative par
ty stand to-day disputing not the rights
of colored persons to sue and be sued,
to implead and be implicated, but the
power of Congress to override State
laws and constitutions in an attempt to
confer such rights. 1t appears to me
that when such men as Wade and
Sumner vote for and defend such bill
as has been recently vetoed, they stul'
tify themselves, and subject themselves
to the charge of inconsistency-if, in
l,oA hr Il q Arh
to which so many pious and patriotic
Radicals have made themselves liable
of late.
Mr. Wade and his friends counseled
the notification of the Fugitive Slave
Law because it contained the very pro-
visions now embodied in the Civil
Rights Bill, and yet they have the i'm
pudence to denounce as traitors and
copperheads all who, never having in
dorsed the Fugitive Slave Law, cannot
consistently indose its counterpart
the Civil Rights Bill. 1t was a heinous
matter TO order the arrest of State
Judge fifteen years ago for enforcing
an act of the Ohio Legislature, but it is
all right now and he is but rebel at
heart who says the contrary. Such is
the logic of the Radicals, whose plat
form seems TO have been borrowed from
the ancient and honorable conclave
who met and unanimously adopted the
following resolutions:
ReSoLved, l. That the earth belongs
to the saints.
ReS0lvsd, 2. That we are the saints"
Let a man accuse Mr. Wade ofincon-
sistency in the Senate, and he'll Jump
to the floor, and sweat and fret, and
fume and froth, proclaiming in every
other sentence that his principles are
chained to the throne ofGod Almighty
and founded on the rock of eternal
truth. He'll put one hand in his
breeches pocket and the other under
the breast ofhis waistcoat, and prance
up and down the Senate floor raving
like an exasperated bull in torrent Of
rage. But l take it that people have
right TO look into the record even of
the elect, and even when it requires an
approach to God Almighty's throne to
get at it And whoever will compare
the opinions of Ben Wade on the Fugi-
tive Slave Law with his votes for the
Civil Rights Bill, will not find it diff
cult to convict him of the grossest self
qualification. The same is true of
other apostles of Radicalism on this
question.