The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1866-12-04
welcome to COurress.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 3.-The mass well
come to Republican members of Con.
gress which came of here this forenoon
was very hne affair. The following is
Judge Carriers address OF welcome;
Gentlemen: It is made NV pleasure
and duty by the loyal citizens of the
District OF Columbia, under their vari-
Gus organizations, to tender a welcome
to the Union members of the Thirty
ninth Congress. In their name now
welcome you one and all to their hospi-
talitY. The welcome is given as an ex-
preston of respect for your wisdom and
patriotism as national Lawmakers and
as municipal legislators of this district;
yielding all honor to the nations de-
tenders in the field and without reflect
ing upon the other branches of the
Government or the integrity of the
distinguished functionaries who occu-
py the seats of Executive and Judicial
power, and with no disposition to fiat
terry, we may be permitted to say that q
nation saved bears testimony that We
tender no mistaken regard; a nation
saved from the conspiracieS of Eu-
rOpean powers; saved from the
parriCidal efforts of domestic foes; saved
from bankruptcy; saved from slavery;
nation saved, not in its sins, but from
its sins; a nation saved in all its liber-
ties at home, to be and continue the
prophet of liberty for the world, and
that nation transferred in the catalogue
of nations, by the very process of its
trials, from an experimental to a per-
manent and paramount power. These
results, made painfully clear by the
national trials, fresh in the memory OF
all, through which the Republic has
passed, and is passing to certain tri-
umph, together with its young, unin-
Inundated fidelity to principle and
Roman firmness in its defence, COM
mand the honor of our own personal
and political regard. Much has been
done, much remains to be done. II
has been not inaptly said, that this is a
Goyerumentotthe people, by the people,
and for the people; that people have
spoken at the ballot-box, in our
theory of Government, the source OF
power. In their electoral judgment,
they have demanded that the ways OF
the nation shall be re-adjusted in such
wise as to assure personal liberty to all,
without regard to color or condition.
In the light of this deliberate and en-
phatlc verdict of the people, made in
evitable by the memories of sacrifices
and blood, you are admonished to
guarantee by law that the great nation
al trust shall be administered in the
spirit ofuniversal liberty. 1t is not our
province or purpose to suggest what
laws should be made. The Significance
"a Ou4 tSANCA vi hospitality Is an eN-
preston of our implicit confidence that
whatever is needed to be enacted into
law, within the Constitution, will be
accomplished through your Legislative
elaboration, and the nation, born
again, will go on in its high career OF
political and material prosperity.
Mr.. Coltax replied as follows:
Fellow citizens-Only four months
nave passed away since the first session
ofthe Congress ended, and the men,
bers whom You now greet with such
generous and earnest welcome, returned
to their homes to render an account OF
their stewardship to the people, and to
discuss before that tribunal, from
which there is no rightful appeal, the
gravest issue ever submitted on tn c
battle field, to which treason invited
the nation. Our heroic defenders, amid
the storm of shot and shell and flame,
on sea as we'll as on shore, had
triumphantly decided that our star
gemmed banner should never become
the winding-sheet of the worlds best
hopes, but after their conflicts and their
sacrifices, 1t still remained for the peo-
pie at the ballOt-box, and the peoples
Representatives, and Senators in these
Halls of Legislature, to guard the Re-
public etfectually against another re-
bellion drenching the land in blood,
and after this terrible contest for
national existence, to reconstruct
on such an enduring cornerstone
that posterity should realize to the
latest syllable of recorded time,
that our fallen heroes had not died in
vain, but four months ago we left the
Capital and yet how crowded with
events. The bloody, wicked, massacre
at New Orleans the very week after our
adjournment and the extract of a speech
of the President at st. Louis palliatiup
the guilt ofthe murderers and charging
the grave responsibility on the Con-
gress of the United States. Two great
Philadelphia Conventions are remark
able for the frank acknowledgment that
those who denounced Congress were
really arm-in-arm with the men who,
trlumphing in broken oaths, had
sought to destroy the nations life
and the other honored by the presence
Of the faithful loyalists who, when the
storm OF treason swept over their
States, refused to bow the knee to
Baalam; the expulsion from office OF
thousands trusted and commissioned
by our martyred President to whom
more than any other equal number of
men, the present administration was in
debted for the power it welded, their
prime being, infexible fidelity to the
principles prOfessed by the successful
candidate for Vice President in the can
yass 1864; the hundreds OF speeches OF
this Presidential tour throughout the
land, and their republication in mil
lions of copies of all our prominent
press, bringing the issues to the hearth
stone of every voter. The maghifi-
cent response of the people from
ocean to ocean condemniDp the
policy of which they had heard SO
much and attesting their mistaken con-
hdence in Congress which had stood SO
faithfully, so fearlessly and so immova-
NF rNVNtNV Il
How rapidly have we been making
history in the past few months. Thank
God in this land the people are only
rulers. Every two years they resume
their sovereignty and by the ballot box
they make and unmake Congress and
they approve or condemn administra-
tons. They command and Congress
and the President must obey. We re-
turn then to the hall to carry out and
enforce the decision of the rulers of the
nation-the people. No man can mis-
understand their will. Four points
have been settled by them beyond con-
troversy.
lst, That the work of restoration
must be in the hands of those who have
been their friends, not enemies Of the
nation.
I'd, That it must be based upon
the granite of loyalty, and NOT
upon the quicksands of disIoyaltv, and
that with the privileges and immunf.
ties OF the liberty granted by the nation
Sd. That no person shall be disfran-
chised in the republic on account of
their race, and have their numbers
counted to confer increased political
power in those DISTINGUISHING them.
4th. That the national debt, the cost
of our national existence, shall be for
ever sacred, and that all debts or claims
growing out of the rebellion or break
ing on that ended it, shall be forever