Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1867-07-18
DishOnssty and Double Dealing Of Congress

MS speech explaining thc utW AecSoA
slruciion bill now in its progress through
the Senate, is reported to have said
1.-THE occasion which gave rise to
these Reconstruction acts was this:r II
was believed on the part Of the Congress
Of the United States that no legal gov
ernments existed in tho rebellious
States, and that those States were still
properly subject TO military control.
"This was the theory upon which
Congress acted. The want Of legitimate
civil governments was the evil which IL
was designed to remedy; and these bills
known as the Reconstruction acts were
intended to furnish the machinery for
inauguraiing proper civil governments
in those States, and restoring them to
their legitimate positions in the Union
"If Congress was wrong in this posi-
ton, then the whole legislation is
wrong, has no foundation in the Con-
stitution, and cannot be sustained for a
moment ann.
II will be no difficult achievement,
then, TO knock the supporting prop from
under tho Reconstruction acts, and prove
that Congress is self convicted Of perfdy
to the States and dishonest violation Of
the Constitution.
There we're eleven States that seeded
The ten now subject to military rule,
and Tennessee. The first Congress after
the end OF the war decided that those
States all stood upon the same footing,
and excluded the whole eleven from
representation. Whatever reasoning ap-
plies to any one of them, applies to all;
for they all stood in precisely the same
relations TO the federal government.
Was Tennessee without government Z
Did Tennessee ra,ify the constitutional
amendment proposed by the last Con-
gress without government Was len
nesse promptly admitted after that
ratification, and in proclaimed conse-
oueuce of that ratification, Congress all
the while believing the ratification to be
sham; believing the State to have no
government at the time capable Of giving
valid ratification Was there ever
such hardihood, such effrontery, as for
Congress to pretend that it passed the
reconstruction acts because the ten
States had no governments competent
to renew their federal relations, IN the
face of its own action IN respect to
Tennessee .-at OF" e0
The Reconstruction acts are an i'm
pudent aferthought, passed in the exer-
else of an authority which the same
Congress, at its preceding session, dis
claimed in striking and memorable
forms. The samo constitutional amend
ment which Tennessee was Immediately
readmitted for ratifying, was also pre-
sented by Congress to the other ten
States, accompanied with a promise by
all their party orators and newspapers,
that they, too, should be restored if their
Legislatures would ratify it. How could
they ratify it if as Mr.. Trumbull now
asserts, and his whole party declare, the
States had no organizations capable of
sustaining relations with the Federal
government The country has been q
thousand and a thousand times told Jy
the Republicans, that the Reconstruc-
ton acts were passed because the South
refused TO accept the milder condition of
the constitutional amendment To ratify
su ch an amendment is the very highest
act that can be performed by State in
its federal capacity. The offer of this
CO0QlIlOu WAS luli huu SOihpiOtO AS'
coguition of the Southern State govern
ments, and of their legal validity. But
Mr.. Trumbull now tells us, and tells us
truly, that if those States had any legal
governments, this whole legislation is
wrong, has NO foundation in the Consti.
tuition, and cannot be sustained for
moment 1t is even so.
If the excluded States had no legal
governments, the amendment abolishing
slavery has never been legally ratified
and is no part of the Constitution; 1t
required several ratifcations by these
same States TO make up the three-fourths
But Congress has repeatedly recognised
the abolition amendment as part of the
Constitution, and thereby also recog-
nized the validity of ratifying State
governments. Congress is estopped, by
its own repeated action, from setting up
any such pretense as that the States it is
now legislating about have no legal gov
ernments. The impudence ofpretending,
in the face of its own reiterated admis-
sions, that those States had no valid
governments is astounding But this
indescribably impudent assumption is
the sole prop and support of the Recon
struction acts, the only argumentatiye
ground on which anybody attempts their
justification. Y. World