The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1867-12-06
PRESIDENTS MESSAGE.
ICONTINUED.I 7

PRESIDENTS MESSAGE.
lCoNTINUED.
Another reason for retracing our
steps will doubtless be seen by Con-
gress in the late manifestations of
public opinion upon this subject.
We live in country where the popu-
lar will always enforces obedience to
itself, sooner Or later. It is vain to
think of opposing it with anything
short of legal authority, backed by
overwhelming force. It cannot have
escaped your attention, that from the
day on which Congress fairly and for
mally presented the proposition to
govern the Southern States by mill
tary force, with q view to the ulti-
mate establishment of negro supre.
macy, every expression of the gene
raj sentiment has been more or less
adverse to it. The affections of this
generation cannot be detached from
the institutions of their ancestors.
Their determination to preserve the
inheritance of free government in
their own hands, aud transmit it un-
/ divided and unimpaired to their own
posterity, is too strong to be success
fully opposed. Every weaker passion
will disappear before that love of
liberty and law for which the Ameri.
can people are distinguished above
all others in the world.
How far the duty of the President,
ito preserve, protect, and defend the
Constitution, requires him to 90 in
opposing an unconstitutional act OF
: Congress, is very serious and i'm
portant question, on which I have
deliberated much, and felt extremely
anxious to reach proper conclusion.
Where an act has been passed accord
ing to the forms of the Constitution
by the supreme legislative authority,
and is regularly enrolled among the
public statutes of the country, Exc
cutive resistance to it, especially in
times of high party excitement,
would be likely to produce violent
collision between the respective ad-
helents Of the two. branches of the
Government. This would be simply
civil war; and civil war NEST be re-
sorted to only as the last remedy for
the worst of evils. Whatever might
tend to provoke it should be most
carefully avoided. A faithful and
conscientious Magistrate will concede
very much to honest error, and some
thing even to perverse malice, before
he will endanger tho public peace;
and he will not adopt forcible mea-
sures, or such as might lead to force,
as long as those which are peaceable
remain open to him or to his consti-
tuents. 1t is true that cases NAV oc-
cur in which the Executive would be
compelled to atand on it's rights, and
maintain them, regardless of ali con-
sequences. If Congress should pass
an act which is not only in palpable
conflict with the Constitution, but
will certainly, if carried out, produce
Immediate and irreparable injury to
the organic structure of the Govern.
ment, and if there be neither judicial
remedy for the wrongs it infiicts, nor
power in the people to protect them
selves without the official aid of their
elected defender-if, for instance
the legislative department should
pass an act, even through all the
forms of law, to abolish coordinate
department of the Government-in
such case the President must take
the high responsibilities of his office,
and save the life of the nation at ali
hazards. The so-called reconstruc.
ton acts, though as plainly unconsti
'tutional as any that can be imagined.
were not believed to be within the class
last mentioned. The people were
not wholly disarmed of the power of
self defence. In all the Northern
States they still held in their hands
the sacred right of the ballot, and il
was safe to believe that in due time
they would come to the rescue of
their own institutions. It gives me
! pleasure to add that the appeal to our
q common constituents was not taken
in vain, and that my confidence in