The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1866-07-28
Convention of Loyal Southerners.
RELIANCE ON CONGRESS AND THE GREAT
UNION PARTY.

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A meeting of the Southern loyalsts now in
Washington was held July 18th, 1866, al
which the following call was unanimously adopt
ed and signed. Other signatures will be added
during the week, making the call more COM
plete one, when it will be issued in official form
In its present shape, there will be found many Of
the most prominent public men of the South,
lawyers, journalists, merchants and officers. The
call for the Convention is as follows:
To the Loyal Uaaionists Of the South:
The great issue is upon US. The majority in
Congress and its supporters firmly declare that
the rights Of the citizen, enumerated in the Con-
stitution and established by supreme law, must
pathizers asserted that the rights of the citizen
must belong to the State alone, and under such
regulation as the respective States choose volun-
tarly to prescribe. We have seen this doctrine
of State sovereignty carried out in its practical
results until all authority in Congress was de-
MED the Union temporarily destroyed, the consti-
tutiona rights of the citizens of the South near
ly annihiIated and the land desolated by civil
war. The time has come when the structure of
Southern States Governments must be laid on
constitutional principles, or the despotsm grow
remain We know of no other plan than that
Congress, under its constitutional powers, shall
now exercise its authority to establish the princi-
pie whereby protection is made co-extensive with
citizenship We maintain that no State, either
by its organic law or legislation, can make trans
erosion on the rights of the citizen legitimate.
We demand and ask you to concur in demand
ing protection to every citizen of the great Re-
public on the basis of equality before the law,
and further that no State Government should
be recognized as legitimate under the Constitu-
ton in so far as it does not by its organic law
make impartial protection full and complete
Under the doctrine of State Sovereignty, with
rebels in the foreground controlling Southern
legislatures, and emhittered by disappointment
in their schemes to destroy the Union, there
will be no safety for the loyal elemement of the
South. Our reliance for protection is now on
Congress, and the great Union party that has
stood, and is standing By the nationality, by the
constitutional rights Of the citizen, and by the
benefcent principles of free government. For
the purpose of bringing the loyal Unionists of
the South into conjunctive action with the friends
of Republican government Of the North we in
yite you to send delegates in goodly numbers
from all Southern States including Missouri,
Kentucky West Virginia, Maryland and Della
ware, to meet at Independence Hall, in the city
of Philadelphia, on the first Monday Of Septem-
Der next. 1t is proposed that we should meet at
that time to recommend measures for the eStab-
lishment of such government in the South as ac-
cords with and protects the rights of all citizens.
We trust this call will be responded to by nu-
mefous delegations of such as represent the true
loyalty of the South-that kind of government
which gives full protection to all the rights of
the citizens, such as our fathers intended, and
we claim as our birth-rght. Either the lovers
of constitutional liberty must rule the nation or
rebels and their spmpathizers be permitted to
misrule it. Shall loyalty or disloyalty have the
keeping of the destines of the nation Let the
responses to this call, which is now in circulation
for signatures and is now being numerously sign
ed, answer. Notice is given that gentlemen at a
distance can have their names attached to it by
sending a request by letter, directed to D, W.
Bingham, ESQ.,, Washington D. G.
w. B. Stokes, Tennessee; A. j. Hamilton,
Texas Lorenzo Sherwood, Texas G. W.
Washburn, Georgia; ]. w. McClurg, Missouri !;
F.: j. Benjamin, Missouri; Durham Wardwel,
Virginia John B. Troth, do; VIM. n Berkeley,
do; ]. W. Hunnicutt, do; George Reese Ala
bama, NJ. j. Stafford, do; D. R. Goodloe, North
Carolina j. S. Fowler, Tennessee; G. W.
Paschal, Texas Henry G. Cole, Georgia; John
B. Kelso, Missouri G. W. Anderson, do; ].
G. Underwood, Virginia Lewis Mckenzie, do !;
], NJ. Stewart, do; Allen G. Harmon, do Alex
NJ. Davis, do D. H. Bingham, Alabama; By
ron Latin, North Carolina; j. H Larcombe,
Alabama James Getty, Tennessee