The Portland daily press., 1866-04-14

than simply to examine the formal credential
ofSouthern Senators and Representatives.
III. Or turn to the question of the RICH
CT the lately rebellious States to an immediate
voice in the government. On the 9th of June
1864, Mr. johnson said in q public address
"Shall the man who gave his influence and hi.
means to destroy the government, participate
inthe great work of reorganization? If this
be SO, then all the precious blood of our brave
soldiers and officers, so freely poured out, will
have been wantonly spilled and all the glori
GUS battlefields which have been sown with
dead heroes will have been made memorable
in vain. Therefore i say that traitors should
take back seat in the work of restoration"
On the 10th OF last February, the President
sent message to the Senate in the course OF
which he complained that eleven States of the
4 Union were unreasonably deprived of voice
in either House, and objected to the validity
| OF bill which had been submitted to his ap-
proval, on the ground that those States had
had no part in enacting it. And again and
again has he, in different ways, expressed bis
desire to have those States, without any fun
ther guarantees of their loyalty than have al
ready been given, admitted to full and equal
authority in all the legislation occasioned by
| the war. While the highest officers Of the
army are protesting against the safety of with
| drawing troops fromtSouthern soil, because of
the danger of ruin to all loyal men or meas
ures, the President is brow-beating Congress,
and employing all the energies of Executive
influence, to renstate men into the posi-
ton OF judges and legislators upon the conse-
quences of their own crimes.
~. Or consider, as the last of these particu-
lars, the attitude of the President in reference
to the Freedmen On the 9th of October 1854,
Mr.. johnson said to mass meeting of colored
menin Nashville, Il will be your Moses to lead
you through the Red Sea of struggle to a ftl-
ture of e liberty and Peace. Loyal men, whether
whiteor black, shall govern the state. " On the
regiment of negro soldiers returning from the
war inwhich address he said 20 This is your
country as well as anybody else's country.
This country is formed on the principle ofequal-
ity." Again, just before the murder of Mr..
Lincoln, Vice President johnson was address
ing an assemblage in front of Admiral Lees
residence at Washington. He was asserting
hisdesire. & whatever cost to save the Union.
To do it he was willing to make many enor-
nous sacrifices. A loud voice in the crowd
give him the ballot, and the Union will stand
forever" "And am ready for that toe" said
Mr.. johnson in reply.
Week before last the President vetoed bill
to secure equal civil rights before the law to all
=citizensofthe land:a bill which, while framed
to meet the case Of the lately enslaved lace, was
impartial in its application; which had been
submitted beforehand to his scrutiny, with
request that he would point out any objection.
able features that they might be modified in
accordance with his desires; and which, in the
supposed absence of any objection on his part,
had been passed by a more than two-thirds
vote in both Houses of Congress. This bill he
vetoed. He refused to extend the common
protection of law over the suffering and hunted
freedmen, to whom he had promised to be a
Moses" and friend. Gods dispensations are
wont to be progressive. They move from less
to more perfect. But if the denial of human
rights be a part of the Mosaic dispensation the
President promised, no wonder the loyal blacks
over all the South, are signing for the Abra-
hamic one which went before.
IL On several important points 1 have thus
brought the attitudes of the President, at
briefly separated periods of time, to confront
one another. Again say that parallel fails to
an instance of change so sudden, SO extreme,
SO complete Il am too old" says the Presi-
dent, Ito alter my course" II take no back
ward, steps" But the world looks ON with
amazenlent to see man six months ago de-
nounced by every secessionist in the land, now
locked with them in loving embrace to be-
hold President supposed (though not chosen
the loyal peoples will, now denouncing the
Representatives of their choice, and doing all
in his power to make the Congress of their
election cipher and scorn. &
But the bearing and influence of this change
are far more important than the fact of it. Can
any one look at the altered aspect of affairs all
over the South in these later weeks and months
and not see in the altered position of the Pres
ldent the true explanation of it {? Do not the
two things mutually. tit and interpret one
another? And is not the conclusion unayoid-
able, unwelcOme though it be, that the chief
responsibility for the enhanced perplexities
which are upon us, lies at President Andrew
JohnSon'S door? AL -4.flLy3 il Il If.E
What now in the present condition of affairs
nations fIltu
= Plainly to hold Its hand steadfastly to the
plough, whoever looks back. The work de-
Volved upon the people to do, though it may be
embarrassed cannot be altered, even by the
dereIctlon Of twenty Presidents. The duty of
establishing Freedom upon immovable founda-
lions is still upon us. The duty of securing,
beyond possibility of loss the advantages which
Humanity has wen, is still before us. The duty
of milking disloyalty ssodious," and rebellion
crime 70 be dreaded, is a duty still Our task
will not be ended, till equal and impartial law
holds unobstructed sway over every foot of our
sol, and every inhabitant of the land. The work
will never be complete till exact and undis-
eliminating civil and political rights are will
lingly accorded to men of every shade our sun
looks down upon. The rule which applies to
the black, must be the rule also for the white.
The civil privilege to which the white citizen
may attain, to that also it must be the legal
privilege of the black citizen to aspire. If he
cannot reach it, d must be personal disqualifi-
by law. The land will know no enduring rest
till the last vestige OF the abominable iniuuity
OF legislating one race into a position of infe-
rlority to another race. is purged from every
statute book OF the nation. And toward this
goal the peoples duty is to run the furrOw
straight and plain. Every consideration which
can urge the mind to conviction or the will to
action, points in this direction as the nations
only course. ~ 30 4s.--.--e ..yF
Justice to the long oppressed Freedman de-
Qga-If hon IS, Al.
the nations friend. Loyal always, patient, be-
heving, ne gave US his prayers, his Service, his
blood. Side by side with our white brothers
and sons, the black mans bones lie unnumbered
beneath the sod of fifty battlefields of the land
Red in indistinguishabie currents, their hearts
tide flowed forth, mingling with that of Saxon
mothers boys, by ship and shore, through all
the later actions of the war. And concerning
those who survive of them and their race, the
people have sworn q solemn oath that the prom
Use OF liberty made by Abraham Lincoln in the
natlon's name shall never be broken. No soph-
istry can turn them aside from that determine
ton; no Craft can defeat it. . If there is one
thing more than another that the people have
made up their mind to, it is that the negro shall
have freedom. Freedom not in name but in
fact. Freedom guaranteed by securities which
cannot be broken. They do not intend to have
servile and half-emancipated race in this
country, condemned, though not slaves, to
hopeless inferiority. They mean to have exact,
equal justice for the negro; and to make the
Declaration Of Independence Lot glittering
| generality but q solid fact gf T.. y :
Again, justice to the memory of our dead,
and to the sufferings of those who survive, de-
mands, also, the running of the furrow straight
on.
What has been done has cost us dear. More
than three hundred thousand young men lie
nloyalb but untimely graves. Who can begin
to estimate their heroic sacrifice? Life is sweet
to those who are young in it. 1t was a blessed
thing for our boys to see the sun. But they
died. Died by bullets, died by bayonets, died
by marches, died by fevers, died by starvation,
died by almost Indian cruelties. They suffered,
they fought, they endured, they persisted fir I'm
the land they loved. But not they alone suf-
fered. o the homes of this people, what a
story could they tell A story which in time
can never be told! Fathers watching for their
returningsons; mothers folding away the relics
OF the brave sand dead; maidens diving of a
grief that dared not take the solace even Of
tears. All, it has cost dear 1t has cost
| dear
i And now by all the neuofv of tho ,,o,,,o ord