Cedar Falls gazette. [volume] (Cedar Falls, Iowa) 1860-1895, 1866-04-06
The Civil Rights Bill.

omens We have in the news from the
Land Of Steady Habits!
51a The Civil Rights Bill.
No one can read the Presidents Mes.
sage, vetoing the Civil Rights bill,
without feeling convinced that the
Chief Executive is opposed to the prin-
ciples embodied in that important meas
ure. The cry Of Constitution " is one
we all have become familiar with dur.
ing the past five years, and since tho
formation Of our Government it has al
ways been put against argument and
justice by the opponents of Freedom
1t is so much easier to say that the Con-
stitution is being disregarded, than it is
to make an argument in behalf of OPP
preston and Wrong. So much easier.
Slavery was nurtured under this false
treatment; the odious Fugitive Slave
law was passed in 1850 to carry out a
Constitutional provision; Buchanan
was powerless to prevent secession and
treason in 1860 because the Constitution
gave him no warrant to coerce sover-
eign State; the Copperheads cried out
both day and night against the war for
the Union, because " Lincoln and his
hirelings," they said, were breaking
down that bulwark of American Liber-
ty--thc Constitution. And now An
drew johnson comes forth from the bo-
som of the Republican party, which
lifted him up from the tailor's bench
to the Presidential chair, and, forgetting
the glorious struggles and dearly bought
triumphs Of the past, strikes up that
selfssme tune. The Copperheads and
rebels hear the dear old notes, as sound
ed by the new piper, and with revivifi-
ed hopes these men, black in trespasses
and sins, to-day hurrah for Andrew
Johnson and the Constitution. ..#
Andrew johnson was Representa-
tive in Congress in 1850, and assisted
with his vote and influence in making
the Fugitive Slave Law. If the details
Of the Civil Rights bill are unconstitu-
tional-if they infringe upon the rights
Of States and offer bride for corrup-
ton and fraud--how was it with the
Fugitive Slave bill? The Fugitive
Slave Law was forced upon the people
of the North TO protect gigantic wrong;
to make them dogs to hunt men and
women escaping from condition of
debasing slavery to land of Freedom.
Andrew johnson thought that law, in
all its disgusting particulars, was Con-
stitutiOnal. Times have changed since
then. The country has emerged from
civil war, in which the people of the
South sought to separate themselves
from the people of the North, because
the latter would not recognize Slavery
as cornerstone of the Union. The re-
ult is that the Union is preserved, and
the Institution of Slavery, the cause of
trouble, is destroyed. The Constitution
has been amended so that Slavery or
involuntary scrvitude, except in pun
ishment for crime, is prohibited, and
Congress is authorized TO enforce that
provision by appropriate legislation
The Southerners are naturally not in
the best frame of mind toward the
"Yankee" o.. the Niger" They SO
Just as far as they can go to injure both.
So Congress passes bill to protect all
classes in the enjoyment of their civil
lights. The President vetoes it. Mr..
Johnson has much to say about his un-
changableness; but we are at loss to
know how his position in 1850 on the
Fugitive Slave bill and his position to-
day on the Civil Rights bill can be har-
monized. The details of the two bills
are much the same in nature, only those
Of the one are in the interest of Slavery
and those of the other in the interest of
Freedom. We do not consider that the
President is correct when he asserts
that Congress has no precedent for the
passage of such an act as the Civil
Rights bill. We refer him and his sup
porters to the Fugitive Slave Law,
which the President aided to make.
If we admit that the Constitution
prevents the national authority from
interfering for the protection of Freed.
where do we bring up? Is it not evil
dent, if we make this admission that
the South can, by State and municipal
laws, reduce the negro to condition
even more deplorable than that from
which he has recently been liberated
We cannot escape an affirmative an
swer. The heresy of State Rights we'll
nigh ruined the nation, and will yet
destroy all the vital principles of the
Government, in the South at least, il
allowed to be persisted in. If the Pres.
ident's policy should be followed out
South Carolina might legislate that ne
groes should work for such and such
wages; that learning to read should be
criminal otfense, and in fact revive all
the odious features of slavery, barring
the buying and selling of human flesh
and blood. Under this policy, OF course
the Southerners would prove thei!
Wanted doctrine of the negroes inca
pacity for freedom. 1t would be like
betting that a man could not raise him
self from the ground by the strength o
his own hands. You lash the man Sc
curely down, and then tell him to try
The man fails, Of course, be he strong
"a Hercules or powerful as Atlas, anc
you turn with q ha-ha," and an ~
told-you-so." What does freedom
amount to without freedoms privi
leges? Ifa man lie to have no rights al
Freeman, he better have the favors o
aSlave. Such policy will never, nec