Daily union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1865-1866, 1866-04-22
THE LATEST PHASE OF RECON
STRUCTION.

The Cincinnati Commercials Washington
correspondent, thus speaks of the scheme of
Robert DALE OWEN, to restore the Union ::
The latest proposition discussed by the
Committee of Fifteen is one submitted bv
Robert Dale Owen, and it must be admitted
to be slight improvement. at least upon
anything yet considered by that dark-lantern
body. 1t is in the form of a Constitutional
amendment, consisting on the one article
embracing four sections, as follows: First
embodying what is declared in the first sec
ton of the Civil Rights bill, that all persons
born on American soil, without distinction
of race or color, are citizens of the United
States. Second, that after the 4th of July,
1876 ten years hence, and just one hum
bred years after the Declaration of Independ-
encel, every citizen over twenty-One years
shall be entitled to vote at municipal and
federal elections. Third, that until the 4th
of July, 1876, representation shall be based
upon voters and Fourth, that no money
shall ever be appropriated by any State
Government, or by the General Government,
for the payment of debts contracted in sup
port of the rebellion, or for the emancipa-
ton of slaves. Then there is a joint reso-
luton that any of the lately seeded States
adopting the above, shall be entitled to
representation in Congress.
The friends of this proposition assert that
many Southern statesmen have signifed
their Willingness to accept it rs soon as pre-
scented, but | very much doubt this. Alex
ander IL. Stephens, who may be taken as the
best representative of the conservative ele-
ment of the South, says it would not be ac-
cepted, and that he would not advise its ac-
ceptance. While he believes with most
others who are not blinded by prejudice
against the black race, that emancipation
will ultimately lead to the adoption of what
is set forth in Mr.. Ovens proposition, he is
confident that the present is not the time to
insist upon, or to reconcile the minds Of the
Southern people to it. The great error of
the Radicals is in supposing that they can
accomplish by decree of the Committee of
Fifteen a revolution in public sentiment in
the South, such as required two generations
of strong-minded preaching to accomplish
in New England.
They forget that Boston was about the
first city in the United States where an abo-
litionist was put through the incipient stages
of hanging, that Garrison and Phillips and
their compeers grew gray in the service be-
fore they achieved the enforcement of equal
rights in the land of the puritaus, and that
a few months ago the State of Connecticut,
whose people live almost under the shadow
if Fanuiel Hall and fremont Temple, re-
fused, by very decided vote, to do what
they now ask the people of South Carolina
to do. The testimony of every intelligent
man who has travelled through the South is
that the right of suffrage conferred by Con
gress upon the negroes at present would be
their right to get their heads broken at the
polls, as Mr. Cowan says. Mr.. Colfax
summed up the problem of reconstruction
in these words in a post prandial speech at
Baltimore last winter: testiRa iente, which,
if he could have been persuaded in the
presence of boned turkey and champagne,
to come down to plain English, he would
have rendered into take it easy" Wouldn't
it be well for the Radicals to "hasten slow
ly''in the enforcement of their new-fangled
theories?