American citizen. [volume] (Butler, Butler County, Pa.) 1863-1872, 1867-05-22
ERROR In RECONSTRUCTION.

ouOW SOInc VI tiic ulStdhe5 HhiSh ee'io SSoh'
try has made upon the question of recon>
struction. Yet they are natural errors, and
are such as reveal the prudent and wise
habit of the popular mind which declines to
act until it perceives the reason Of action.
The problems with which the fall of the re-
bellion confronted the country were wholly
new and of the most vital Importance. There
was technical, summary superficial solution
of them, very easy to understand, and also
very sure to make the war ridiculous. This
solution was merely the policy of treating
have resisted the authority of the Govern
ment, it was urged they would not disperse
upon reading the riot act, and it, was neces,
sary to call out the military force. That has
succeeded in quelling the disturbances, and
now everything will resume its ordinary
course. This was view which was very
plausible in 1861. 1t had become sheer
folly in the year 1865. ..........
The rebellion was a death struggle be-
tween the TWO principles which disputed the
mastery of the Government The dispute
was maintained under the form of interprsS
tation of the constitution. The principle
known as the South claimed that the con-
stitution was a treaty between sovereign
States, which might be annuled in its own
case by the will of any one of the States
This was the claim The object was the
perpetuity of human slavery as the corners
stone of Southern Empire. The principle
known as the North held that the constitu.
ton was national bond under which the
Union had become nation, and that seces-
sion was national dissolution, which was
consequently opposed by every patriotic in
stnct. This was the theory. The convic-
ton was that by the laws of society and hu-
man nature slavery would be peacefully end
ed and a great, free, and happy republic es-
tablished.
The controversy became at last too radi-
cal and intense for peaceful solution.
There was no tribunal which could settle it,
and war was invoked to decide what the
constitution meant. Thus it was not upon
the side of the North war merely for the
constitution, but the constitution as the
North understood it; while the South, In
seeding, was attempting to interpret the
constitution as the South understood it. OF
course the side which was victorious won its
Interpretation of the constitution. The
North, not merely as section, but as an
explanation of the constitution, triumphed.
Its first duty, therefore, was to make the
constitution say what the last irreversible
appeal had declared it to mean. That was
what the South expected. 1t looked to see
the North remove the disputed point from
future controversy by dispelling the obscu
rity of the constitution upon the question.
And this, clearly, is what should have been
done. We should have distinctly forbidden
secession by the fundamental law, and we
should have provided in the constitution
that any State which attempted secession
should assume its relations in the Union
only upon such conditions as Congress might
require.
This we should have done while the sur
rendered States still remained under the
military authority of the Government. And
when it was done we should have proceeded
to settle the conditions upon which they
might return. Then there would have been
no Georgia or Mississippi petitions; and the
Supreme court would have had no voice in
the question unless it had undertaken to de-
clare that the constitution had been uneon,
stitutionally amended-a declaration which
we doubt if even the eloquence of Robert
j. Walker could have won from it. The
present difficulty is, that the war has diss
tinctly decided the constitution to mean what
we have not made it distinctly express. The
old verbal obscurity therefore remains, and
the lawyers in the Supreme court are re-
peatng the speeches of Webster and Hayne
in the Senate The trainers of the consti-
tuition Intentionally left the question Of
State rights and sovereignty obscure. They
feared that Union would be impossible if
they did not. From that cloud came the
war. The war has dispelled the obscurity
in fact, but we have not yet stricken it out
of the instrument and as courts and law~
yers deal with verbal interpretations, we
are actually Witnessing the absurd spectacle
of nice technical dispute in court-room
Of an issue which has been decided by the
most tremendous war.
Every written constitution is perilous
folly and snare if it is not most literally in>
terpreted and amended just as fast and fully
as the public sentiment demands. The rev>
erenee for the constitution asa complete and
inspired instrument, needing no. change,
which has been SO se6ulously inculcated in
this country, is an incredible stupidity. 1t
has discouraged independents Of political
thought, so that since the days of the reyo>
luton and of the Federalist we have added
nothing whatever oc importance to political
philosophy but the speculations Of Mr.. Cal
houn and few essays like Sidney Fishers.
Calhoun was the most fearless political think
er in our history except the men of '76 and
'S9, and few of the living radicals. His
political theories were purely medieval, in
deed, but his mind was sincere and indeN
pendent. He at least saw what his follow