Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1867-07-11

know II was not o that you shat
acknowledge the ~lawfulness Of despoti
government as established over you
and Of the subversion Of all the princi
pies Of true !r-epublicanism, and the raw
ishment from you Of all the sacre,
rights without which men are vassal
and serfs.
You hare sworn, also, to support thu
Constitution and lawful government o
your own State, which an arrogant ty-
ranny insists that you shall hold to b,
nought, without nsviBg the power to re
lease you from heobIigatioH OfyOur oath
to support and defend them. How car
YOU consent to stamp as true the declara
ton that no lawful government hss FOL
years existed in your State, when 8
thousand contracts between man anC
man are to be thereby ~annulled, men tC
be released from the obligations Of good
faith, confusion worse c~onfounded tC
prevail everywhere; and your wholJ
social system to be shipWrecked the
judgments Of your Courts to be annulIed.
vested rights to be annIhilated, you
laws % become a dead letter, marriage;
solemnized since accession TO be void, the
wives so married TO become ~Goneubines
and their children bastardized, the act
Of your officers Of the laws to be tres
passes, and the execution Of convicted
murderers be itself MURDER For it il
this, and All this, that the insolence Of
the victor demands you shall do.
What treason can be worse than that
which you are thus summoned to com,
nit? What perjury more rank? What
act Of foxy more suicidal? 1t is not one
Of the rights Of conqest to give the
mastery over you to an ign2rant and
| semi barbarous race, casting, perhaps,
Z as they will do in Louisiana and South
! Carolina, a msiority Of the popular vote.
Can il, by virtue Of shy such right OF
conquest, be demanded Of you that you
shall become the assassins Of free and
Constitutional government, by placing
the powers Of the State in such hands,
and forever estopping yourselves to take
away from those who viii inevitably
abuse them. aud make them engines Ci
oppression and ruin, the powers Of the
government Can it be demanded Of
you. that you shall so solemnly cede
away in peTpetuity all your rights and
privileges, that it shall never be possible
for YOU to reclaim them2
No:-"You have the right 20 save not
only your lives, but your honest liberties
from unworthy bondage, as well as
against any covenant entered into to
your mischief and TO redeem yourselves
from OBSERVATION-DISCLOSURES to honest
peace and Just contentment"
Why, indeed, should you desire to re-
turn at all into a Union, Into which you
cannot re-euter as equals, but only as
cowed and %crouching interiors, your
States shorn and deuUded Of their pre-.
negatives, your Constitutions having not
that just and legitimate sanctity which
those have that are the expression Of the
sovereign and free will Of the people
who make them for themselves as their
own supreme law, but being imposed on
you by power and accepted as the impe-
rial edicts Of despotism? Do you wish
that your Senators and Representative
should crawl servilely into the two
Houses Of Congress when your task
masters who plumber and Cypress you
are graciously pleased to permit it, or
sheuld be ANONYMOUSLY kept in waiting
on their knees, ike the c0urtiers of the
King OF Siam, a Senator Of Maryland,
snd the suspected Representatives Of
Kentucky Do you wish that, when
admitted. they shall sit there as poor
relations, almost as servitors and me-
malls and m~eBdicants, 10 be jeered at
and f0uted and stigmatized as rebels
so broken-spirited, so BUNDLED, and so
detected, as not to feel stirred to resent
any insult, il offered even by a coward
OF a renegade It is difficult to say
which would be the TO be commits
Grated, the State that possessed citizens
willing to represent her under such cir
-cumstances, OF the citizens so humbled
by defeat and cslsmity As voluntarily to
accept a position so ignominious.
The People Of Arkansas have not, BY
their representative, stigmstized them
selves and their dead as rebels and trai-
tors, by declaring their Ordinances Of
Secession null and void, at the mandate
OF a President who executes an act Of
Congress that atlantis hin a sa Usurper
in ali be did towards reconstruction.
They have not even deigned 10 take into
consideration the Constitutional Amend
meDt. The Constitution and Govern
ment that have been annUlled by Con-
gress were imposed on them by fraud
and force in 1864 and the ediot annihi-
latiug them as null and void from the
beginning, restores to full vigor the Con-
stitution superseded by that Of 1864, and
the obligation Of the people to )bey it.
II the Congress Of the United States has
the power, without tue right, to annul
that Constitution also, by comforting the
power 10 vote on negroes, in violation Of
its provisions, what stress Of present
misfortune or threat OF future outrage,
or polgnancy Of despair and hopelessness,
could justify the people Of Arkansas, for
c0nclgrbgg 10 that which would be other
wise a simple act Of lawless violence and
licentious power, but done by them
selves, only the more ~inexcusable, be-
cause extorted by threats and the fear Of
consequences, 70 which States in other
ages have with heroic constancy refused
to yield 3?
II Congress can, in the exercise Of its
usurped power, invest the negro race
with the right Of suffrage, and although
il is certain that it 10iH do it, yet there can
Be, il seems to us, in this certainty, not
the least justification for the people Of
the ten subjugated States, II they, not
Congress to assume the whole
responsibility for so ruinous a measure.
Ia making Constitutions which
contain the grant and guarantees
Of this right, and constitute the n~egro's
iide-deeds 10 political power. II they
merely submit, they retain the right Of
reclamation. nthey themselves, tanned
By oppression OF terrified by menaoes, do
give and grant to the Ethiopian this
light In perpetuity, the grant and sol
emn promise and guarantee estop them
for all time, and preclude the possibility
Of future relief from the curse 50 en-
Free Constitutional government can
bot long exist when a large proportion
8f the electors are ignorant, unintelll-