Bedford inquirer. [volume] (Bedford, Pa.) 1857-1884, 1866-07-27
rHE AuGusr CONVENTION.
Attorney General Speed on the PolitI-
cal situation.
WAHlNeroS, D. q, July Il, 1866.

SIR II nave the nOnOf 70 acknowledge
the receipt of your note of the 10th inst,
with printed copy of call for National
Convention, to be held as Philadelphia on
the 18th day Of August next. You reqnesG
in case the call and the principles enuncia-
ted in it meet my approval, that | reply at
my earliest convenience. This language
would seeui 20 imply that no answer is de-
sired if | do not approve the call and the
principles avowed in it; IN other words that
a failure to reply may be interpreted as a
disapproval, not only of the call but Of each
and all of the principles announced IN it,
This is position in which | am unwilling
to be placed when | approve Of many of the
principles set forth In the call and yet do
not approve of the call itself will briefly
state my reasons; first promising that do
not recognize the very respectable gentlemen
who have made this call as the acknowledged
organs Of the great Union party of the
country.
Since the outbreak of the terrific struggle,
from which the country has now emerged
we have had a National Union party that
has exhibited more devotion made greater
sacrifices. and manifested more unselfish
patriotism thanany party ever did previous
" in the history Of the world That party
Is still in being with its organization intact,
and its organs known and as that party, by
its faith, its doctrines and its exertions, has
in the face Of the prophecies Of half the
New and all the Old World, saved the Gov
ernment and the republican institutions of
our common country from decentralization and
indeed from utter ruin by vindicating at all
hazards the primordial theory of the eternal,
indissoluble union of the States through
which only can particle OF the theory of
State rights ever be maintained and carried
out, it would appear to me to be still the only
or at any rate the most effectual means as
far as party can do it of finally adjusting all
the remaining minor and unsettled matters
of reconstruction consistently with the re-
qurements of the theory mentioned.
| have said that many Of the principles
stated in the call are in my view objections
bic. but content myself with stating that the
call fails to take any notice of one of the
great issues now before the American peo-
pie. [ allude to the question whether the
several States shall Iatify or reject the last
amendment proposed by Congress to the
Constitution Of the United States This is
a grave and all important question. The
issue upon it cannot be avoided. 1t should
be placed fairly and squarely before the peO-
| pie The failure to take ground upon so
important and all absorbing question must
be attributed either to a desire to avoid the
issue or as a declaration of belief and policy
against the adoption Of the amendment
Being myself earnestly and decidedly in
| favor of the adoption of the amendment by
the States, cannot 60 into an organization
that would either openly oppose that meas
ure or that would smother it by avoiding its
| discussion.
This party is the same to day as it was in
| the days of its trial; the same party now as
when but few months ago itelected Lincoln
and johnson, and the majority OF the pres
ent Congress; and as l acted with it then,
! for paramount reasons my sense OF duty de-
mands that | remain and act with it now.
The pith and marrow of tie present call,
! ] should say tends towards a convention to
! form a party for sustaining not the Govern
ment ia its entirety, las has been the mis-
| sion of the Union party. but department OF
| the Government. And here | must take
| the liberty Of adding that | can hardly con-
/ ceiye of any sadder spectacle, under the cri-
SIS Of present circumstances than that OF the
| tried Union party of this country becoming
dislocated and broken up by divisions or
/ that Of one branch Of the Government Of
! the country taking an isolated position upon
questions Of deep and common interest and
placing itselfin hostile conflict with co-ordi-
nate departments
For these and other reasons, which might
| be mentioned, | cannot join in the call for
| the Convention IN Philadelphia.
/ must also add, that no man is more de-
sirous than | am to attain the entire restora-
| ton of the American Union, with its prac-
/ teal workings in more perfect harmony and
| concord than ever, and the surety, as far as
mortal affairs can be made sure. of endless
perpetuity in the future. The blessings tc
! flow from such Union are countless and in
estimable But such Union, consistent
| within itself, maintained by the universal
| consent Of all classes and sections, and
laughing to scorn both the assaults of foes
| internal or external, and the rayages of time
and change, viii only be obtained BY sterniy
retracting every departure from, or compro
| mise with, the supreme and general idea oi
| the American fundamental law, the Consti
tuition. That general idea consists, in brief,
| of the political liberty and equality Of man
| kind under the law. Such, and such only,
can be the Union, the nationality, that will
put in form the magnificent and lofty
dreams Of the American continental mind
and fulfill in tie future the highest efforts
of the present ard the past. 1t is not the
vague delusion that the rights of the States
need doctoring. The American theory cul
inmates properly in the saeTedness of the
rights of individuals-of each single indi
vidual That, after all, is what Washington
carved out with the sword. and Jefferson
6ltering it through his subtleand free mind
drew up and put on reeond with the pen.
Ii is well known that in the political anC
legal history of the United States, the onl,
departures or compromises of the kind allu.
ded to have been those in the interests O
slavery, and of its manifold incidents. | dl
not, OF course, propose to 60 over the thou
sand times told tale Of the past sixty years
as a confessed legality, it is, as we all know,
no more But some of the most important
| of its incidents or compromises still remain
I'ots and Incongruities upon the law. What
equitable reason can be given why these in
| cidents also should not be erased Time
was that when the brains were out the man
would die: but now We see the limbs de-
manding to live and move, as II the nervous
center still existed.
The per- istent attempt to keep in the
| Constitution the rule Of an unequal and un-
/ fair basis of representation is perilous to
the future peace of the country, and will
surely cause a chaiing sense of injustice as
/ long as it is continued.
| Furthermore, the high mission of the Union
party. as aVowcd iR the Baltimore Conven-
/ ton, to fextirpate slavery, includes the
removal ef all the hateful and anti-popular
excrescences engrafted by that institution
for It's own selfish aggrandizement upon our
free national laws and polity. That high
.,,;ss;o, and Ohliration cannot ba aoary,, ,,l;sb