Nebraska advertiser., 1867-12-12
Presidents Message.

The President first calls the attention
Of Congress to the continued disorgan-
ization of the Union" which is a subject
of profound and patriotic concern. The
fact that other nations have had a SINH
lar experience is of great relief to him.
Other courtrys cannot prevent civil war,
aud the President thinks there is no use
of our trying to. At the close of our
civil war the Executive Department and
the insurrectiOnary States promptly un-
derLook the duty of restoration, but were
disappointed by u~nfriendIy Compression.
al Legislation, which did not receive the
Presidential sanction. The President is
unable 10 communicate any definite ad-
justment satisfactory to the American
people. of the question which agitates the
mind of the country. He thinks there
has been no Union since the war closed,
and will not be any so long as the rebels
are kept out of Congress. When we
get so we can treat a rebel as we DO a
Union man, then we shall have a Union
as he and our fathers understood it. That
such is not the case is to him a melan-
cholly fact. Here the President goes
off on a general treaties on the Consti-
tuition which we all have acknowledged
to be good so far back as we have had a
thought upon the subject. The Presl-
dent thinks the process Of restoration
perfectly plain and simple. The Consti-
tuition, he thinks, will be obeyed unless
Congress is determined that ii shall be
disregarded and violated. This is the
only obstacle TO a perfect union. The
tr~anscendent importance of the subject is
his only excuse for repeating in this mes
sage the arguments set forth so forcibly
in his several veto messages. The hope
that Congress will finally adopt "my pol.
icy" is "too natural and too just to be
easily relinquished." The President was
clearly of the opinion that there had
been no Union since the wal closed
Now, he triumphantly asks, when did
The rebel States cease 10 be members of
the national Union? My predecessor,
as well as myself, and the heads Of ALL
Departments, have uniformly acted upon
the principle that the Union is not only
undissolved but indissoluble."
The President, after convincing him.
self of the argument made by himself
on the foregoing proposition, feels it to
be his duty 10 recommend the repeal of
the acts of Congress which upset "my
policy" and which tend to keep the lead.
ing rebels out of Congress. To demon
strate the unconstitutional character of
these laws, it is only necessary for the
President to say that Congress had no
right to make them. The President has
"no desire to save from the proper and
Just consequences of their great crime,
those who engaged in the rebellion a
gainst the Government, but as a mode of
punishment the measures under conside-
ration are the most unreasonable that
could be invented" and consequently
Congress ought to repeal them and &C
cept Of the invention of my Policy in
their stead, which would be more reas.
bic, and if Tins ''dOes 40, satisfy all the
desires of Congressman with regard to
southern rebels, they should console
themselves by rejecting that a free Con-
stitution, triumphant In war and unbroken
in peace is worth far more to US than the
qualification of any present feeling.
The President admits that the militia.
ry governments are only provisional and
temporary, but he fears that the change
will be for the worse, as it is the curse
of despOtism that it has no halting place.
The President thinks the object Of the