The evening Argus. [volume] (Rock Island, Ill.) 1861-1871, 1866-05-18

exclude In Alabama every such man "a that
W ny would ID not be just as constitutisn,i
Ior alabama to pass such An oct a. that !.
tor Missouri to pass the act of which / have
spoken? Ii shows, my friends, absoIuteiv
no power in either Of them to pass any such
act. 1t 10 inhibited in the very words of he
constitution, where il il described Is a bin of
attainder and &c post tfacto law both of which
statutes we are inhibited from passing by
tnat great charter of our rights, the constitu.
tlon OF the United States. A bill of attainder
ana &c post tacto law, Furnishing man for an
act which was no otfense at the time it
was committed; Furnishing man, without
any trial, by legislative act punish
ing man without any proof except his own
confession extorted from him, which is also
prohibited by the constitution of the United
States three violations of the constitution in
it's moss vital points. If there was a man
who had a dream in which he sympathized
with the south-(when he had his waking
faculties about him, knowing there was such
bird OF prey as Drake in existence, and fear
ing to think while awake)-yet IN a dream
he should behold the beautiful boy who had
gone forth from his house, and he should shed
tear IN his eleep on the cheek Of his wife
he would be guilty, he would be felon, for
having heart that belonged to human be-
ing. He would be criminal az all are Grim
inals who have any hearts, in the eyes ofthese
malignants devils and prosecutors of the hu.
man race. tApplause.) do not intend to
include ell those who have followed the for
tunes of the radicals in what l have said
about them. l know that in civil war, that
in high party times even, when the passions
of the people are aroused, men do acts which
they regret; and that is one of the great
distinctions in our criminal code-that man
may even shed blood in passion and be not
guilty of that heinous crime which dem ands
hir life in reparation. Now the great mass
of the radical party in this country, like the
great mass of radicals in all countries, are
honest men, lovers of their country. They
have, to a certain extent, been misled by men
in whom they placed confidence, and, misled
by their passions, aroused by acts at the hands
OF their advasaries-passions which seem al
most to be based upon justice when We look
at our state and see how it was harassed and
annoyed and how innocent men were cut down
by the rebels. No wonder that there should
have been evaporation. 1t would hardly be
human nature if there had not been desire
to put retaliation upon those who did this
harm, and who did this damage, cruelty and
ruthlessly. But when a mans passion is so
blind as to carry him to point where he de-
stroys his own liberty and breaks down his
own government, topples down the temple of
liberty which secures him his rights, in order
to crafty this passion, you may be sure he
has been misled-honestly-bu misled
misled by the vilest set of miscreants and
scoundrels that ever disgraced any political
party in the world-msn who, in a majority
of instances, are the very scrapings of the
old rebel party in Missouri. Applause.
Why, look at Jno. Henderson's record
l.o0E a Dra Ea,a raSnrA How man
young men-intelligent and foolish young
men-did these miscreants. by their eloquence,
drive into the rebel ranks before the war and
at the opening of the war? Did they not
perambulate the entire state, utterlng the
most Infamous and rebsllious speeches? Did
not Henderson boast that he was the author
of the jackson resolutions pledging Missouri
to cooperate with her sister states in dissoly-
ing the Union upon the prohibition of slavery
in the territories only? Did he not denounce
and abuse one of the most illustrious Union
men in the state of Missouri, through pro-
loDgsd campaign in this distriet-it not IN
this district the one adjoining-boast himself
the head and front of the rebel party In the
state, proslavery to the backbone? Did he
not, after the rebellion broke out, and after
the flag of the United States fell at Sumter,
pledge his puny right arm to keep the feder-
al troops off the soil of Pike county; and
did he not meanly sneak into the ranks of the
Z nion party, after he had been the means of
driving 80 many young men from the state
Yet, forsooth, these are the men and the in
ssrunentalities by which this thing has been
made and bartered on the state of Missouri.
| have heard some of these people talk, on
one occasion, that revolutions never 60 back
wards" These pigmies. who imagine them
selves ''revolutionists," and who claim "Ne
are the revolution" and say that revolutions
never go backwards-why it Is the most So
phistical and false statement that ever was
made and will catch nobody but ''gullets."
Revolutions always go backwards-I mean
revolutions of public OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES
these revolutions go to excess, and the good,
common, hard sense OF the people-espeoially
the people of our raee-always correct these
exossses, and they always 60 back. The dan
ger Is they go too tar back. Look at the En-
glish revolution which beheaded king, Gre
atsd commonwealth, and made dictator,
then went back to @ constitutional govern
ment, ossliating like pendulum, through
almost half a century. Look at the history
of Egance in its revolutions. See how it went
from one excess to another.-from the excess
of democracy back to the most absolute form 8
of government. till finally the people of France,
exhausted and disguised, relapsed into the
to this day. Tell me not that revolutions
never 90 backward. They always 90 back !;
but in England they only went back to con-
stitutional governments.
We come from that people. This revolu-
ton, winch has been made in our government,
is complete in its very essence-a revolution
in which everything that is republican is an
initiated in Missouri-till there is not p ves-
tige of republicsnism, and it is simply be-
cause they dare not do it that stand here to-
day to defy them that they dare not prevent
it. Applause. l say that we will, as our
fathers did in the English revolution, carry
this revolution backward to a constitutional
and republican form of government-not as
France did, into despotism. We must do it,
to be true to our ancestors and faithful to our
posterity, or we will disgrace ourselves and
we will not deserve to be called freemen, nor
to pass the Inheritance of freedom to our
children unless we undo the mischief which
has been done. We must go to work and do
it. No faltering about it. There is great
deal too much of that We could have bea-
ten this constitution by such a majority that
not even the audacity and impotence of
Fletcher would have dared to have declared
it passed if our me2 had voted, but some of