Western Reserve chronicle. [volume] (Warren, Ohio) 1855-1921, 1866-09-12

treason-a government de facto, to which
the laws of nations accorded belligerent
rights. The Confederacy was acknoul-
edged as a belligerent by all the leading
nations of Europe, and at last by every
department of the Government of the
United States by the Supreme Court in
the celebrated prize cases of 1862, and
by repeated acts Of both executive and
legislative departments.
Never was an issue more clearly made
up or more desperately contested. The
Confederacy fought for slavery and the
right of secession, for the destruction of
the Union, and the establishment of a
government based on slavery. The loyal
millions fought to destroy the rebellion
and its causes. They fought to save sla-
very by means of disunion we to estab
lish both liberty and union, and to make
them one and inseparable now and for
ever. 1t was a life and death struggle
between ideas that could no longer dwell
together in the same political society
There could be no compromise-there
could be no peace while both were left
alive. The one must perish if the other
triumphed.
There was no compromise. The strug-
gle was continued to the bitter end. In
the larger meaning of the word, there
was no surrender. The rebels did not
lay down their arms, for the soldiers of
the Union wrenched from their grasp
They did not strike their traitor flag it
was shot down by loyal bullets. The reb-
ell army never was disbanded its regi-
ments and brigades were mustered out
by the shot and shell of our victorious
armies. They never pulled down the
Confederate Government, but its blazing
rafters fell in amidst the conhagration Of
war, and its ashes were scattered by the
whirlWind of battle.
And now, fellow citizens, after the COM
pletest victory ever won by human valor
"A victory for the Union which was all
victory and no concession after defeat
of the rebels, which was all defeat and
no surrender, we are asked to listen to
the astounding proposition that this war
had no results beyond the mere fact of
victory. A great political party is asked
the suffrages of the people in support of
the unutterably atrocious assertion, that
these red handed and Vanquished traitors
have lost no rights or privileges by their
defeat, and the victors have acquired no
rights over traitors and treason as the
fruits of their victory These antedilu'
Wan philosophers seem to have turned
down 3 leaf in the record of the life oi
the Republic in April, 1861, and they
propose now, in the year of grace 1866,
to begin again where they ceased reading
five years ago, as if there had been no
crime, no treason, no deluge of blood,
no overthrow of rebellion, no triumph of
| liberty. ...
And now, fellow citizens, who are the
men that advocate this monstrous doc
trIne? l cannot answer this question
without discussing freely the public con-
duct of the President ofthe United States.
For the first eight months after the
collapse of the rebellion, did not hear
that any man making the smallest claim
to loyalty, presumed to deny the right of
the Government to impose conditions
upon the States and people lately in re-
bellion. Certainly the Preiident did not.
Both in his practical management and in
repeated declarations he affirmed again
and again the right of the Government
to demand security for the future and to
require the performance of certain acts
on the part of the rebel States as pre-
liminary to restoration.
You well remember, fellow citizens,
that when l addressed you in the spring
of 1865, shortly after the assassination Of
President Lincoln, expressed the belief
that Andrew johnson would treat trai-
tors with the severity their crimes de-
manded. There was general apprehen-
sion that he might be too severe and de-
mand conditions so hard as to make the
restoration of rebel States a work of great
difficulty. 1t was said that he knew
from personal experience what the rebel
lion was and what treatment treason de-
served.
The American people,remembered his
repeated declarations o. this whole sub
iec.. They remembered his bold speech
at Nashville on the9th day of June, 1864,
when he accepted the nomination Of
Vice President, and used the following
language:
"Why all this carnage and devastation?
1t was that treason might be put down
and traitors punished. Therefore l say
that traitors should take a back seat in
the work of reconstruction. If there be
but five thousand men in Tennessee, 10y
al to the Constitution, loyal to freedom,
loyal to Justice, these true and faithful
men should control the work of reofgani-
cation and reformation absolutely. | say
that the traitor has ceased to be a citizen
and in Joining the rebellion has become a.
public enemy. He forfeited his right to
vote with loyal men when he renounced
his citizenship and sought to destroy our
Government. My Judg-
ment is he should be subject to a severe
ordeal before he is restored to citizenship.
All, these rebel leaders have
Il fl- hnlAfro
out to save their necks from the halter ;
and these leaders must feel the power OF
the Government. Treason must be made
odious and traitors must be punished.
Their great plantations must be seized
and divided into small farms and sold to
honest, industrious men. The day for
protecting the land and the negroes of
these authors of the rebellion is past"
Why remembered his speeches at Wash
ington after his Inauguration, in which
the same sentiments are repeated. They
remembered that in his address to Gov.
Morton and the Indiana delegation, on
the 2lst of April, 1S65-six days after the
pistol of Booth made him President of
the United States-he said:
at is not promulgating anything that
L have not heretofore said, to say that
treason must be made odious, that trait
ors must be punished and impoverished.
They must not only be punished, but
their social power must be destroyed. Ii
not, they will still maintain an ascenden-
cy, and may again become numerous and
powerful; for, in the words of former
Senator of the United States, when trait
ors become numerous enough, treason be-
comes respectable;' and L say that after
making treason odious, every Union man
and the Government should be reimburs-
ed out of the pockets of those who have
inflicted this great suffering upon the
country" Sometimes the re-
bellion may 60 on increasing in numbers
till the State machinery is overturned,
and the country becomes like man that
is paralyzed on one side. But we find IN
the Constitution q great panacea proVi-
ded. 1t provides that the United States
THAT is, the great integer) shall guaran-
tee to each State a republican form OF
ooyarDp,ept Yet if rebellion has been