The Potter journal. [volume] (Coudersport, Pa.) 1857-1872, 1866-08-07

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There was no respectable number of Union
men wiling to aid the United States in
compelling submission to the Constitution
and there are none nor. Al submit to
force Many are willing to acqulesce IN
the unavoidable. al afe willing to gov
ern the United States again, since indie
.pendence is impossible; but all were also
willing to aid the rebellion; and not an
assault and battery was committed for the
United States from the Potomac to the
Gulf of Mexico.
The Union men Of the South did not
merely bow to overbearine force, but they
FASTENED to seek places in the Legislatures,
the Congress, the Executive Mansions, and
gave it a countenauce and support without
which it must have fallen in year; and
when its cause was hopeless they were
quiet and submissive, and did not rise to
aid the United States.
1t is certainly to this class of the white
population that we must look for aid in
restoring civil government in these States /;
hut it is great delusion to suppose them
either bod or strong enough to meet and
defy the united and energetic faction of
reyolutionists which drove them iuto rebel
lion. If they be in power, they will again
do the will Of the resolute and reckless men
who stood behind and around them, and
no legal line discriminates them from the
rebel mass.
If this discrimination be attempted by
the oath to support the Constitution OF
the United States, everybody will take it
and nobody will be excluded.
If the leaders of the rebellion, civil and
military, be excluded though willing to
submit and take the oath, the mass Of the
rebel faction will be admitted; and that
will be the controlling and determining ele-
ment in constituting the State government
and selecting Representatives and Senators
and the practical result is the same as if
nobody were excluded.
If either of these forms be accepted BY
the President and recognized by Congress,
it will instantly change the balance of po-
ilical power in the United States.
1t Is probable the people who have saved
the nation are not content to accept its
consequences without a murmur.
None Of the white population of the
Southern States is interested in paying the
public debt or imposing taxes to meet its
interest. They hold none of it. 1t was
created to subjugate them to the laws. 1t
was created to subjugate them to the laws.
1t has been consumed in their overthrow.
1t Is 10 be paid in great part out Of their
substance. 1t has annlhiIated their public
debt 1t has filed the land with ostra-
cized officers, with wounded soldiers with
an odious free negro population, lately their
slaves, and still under their political control.
If the whites be restored to political
power, their rep esentatives are interested
in repudiating that Public Debt, in refus-
ing to pay its interest, in restoring their
officers to the army and navy, in placing
their wounded on the pension roll, in in
Identifying their friends for losses BY war
or confiscation or forced tax sales, in res
toring slavery under the forms of appren-
ticeship or fixed wages and compulsory
service and discriminating and oppressive
legislation. The effort has already been
made in Tennessee, aud the spirit which
dictated it pervades the whole South, and
will find statutes ready to its hand IN every
State. In Congress, a minority can arrest
legislation. \ majority Of either House
can compel submission to any terms, under
penalty of arrestipg or disorganizing the
government.
The representatives from the States
lately in rebellion will form powerful and
hostile minority, and if they do not find
enough enemies OF the government from
the States DOW represented to give them
majority in one Houss for some of the
purposes above indicated, the near past
throws no light on the near future. The
prospect Of political disorganization will
present few terrors to people still hot with
rebellion, smarting under the overthrow,
and quite as content to ruin as to rule the
country.
To expect them to join in electing a Re-
publican President would be an amiabIe
deHsion which the first election would dis
pei; and they might find it some indem-
nifty for emancipation if the increased vote
they would cast in the name of their freed
slaves should happen to decide the contest
and elevate them to power
If the people are ready for these conse-
quences then there is no difficulty in re-
storing political power to the Southern
States. louisiana or Virginia will serve
as models; or other forms will grow with
mushroom raPidity.
But if it be important that the friends
and not the enemies of the government
shall continue to govern it, other measures
must be taken.
The State governments in tho South
must be placed in hands interested to