Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1867-03-27
VOL. XXZ.X,Iv. .7.'7 x

indemnify every federal officer, civil and
military, against responsibility for all the
outrages, robberfes, and crnelties, of what
ever character, perpetrated during or
since the, war, stops the execution, Of the
Judgment of the sSupremel Court in the
Milligan case. 1t was so avoWed by Mr..
Wilson. While it protects such Off
GERS as Observation-Disclosures hissesl-
and Neal Dow ''pianos'' [laughter]-iI Vir-
tuallv OverthrOws the Supreme Court, as
coordinate and independent branch of the
Government. 1t not only destroys the tri-
bunal of justice, by uprooting its author
ity, but it shields the base men, who, like
the R0marT II berres, for private gain, made
spoil of the provinces. The party who
propose thus to compound the departments
of power. into one head and carry out their
plans by means of threats of impeachment
and military Brigadiers, call themselves
Radicals-PrOgresSives Such Radicals are
as old as the earliest military usurpations.
1t Us nOtlllugN new or progressive to send
out military satraps. 1t is olderthan Joyce
Heth. and she was l61 yearsl Loud laugh
ter 1t is. as ineon gPaOns i'm our nation and
with our Constitution, as the sewing of an
epaulette to Quaker coat or the unity OF
Goldfish with monkey, to produce marine
msidenh Such anoulalies cannot succeed
in our country. Mol Our people, North
and South, are much alike in their aptitude
for self government and their hatred of
usurpation. Says Stuart Mill: -,
Il sWhat the French are in military affairs
the Americans are in every kind of civil
business" This is what every free people
ought to be, and a people capable Of this is
certain to be free.iI It will never let itself
be enslaved byany man or set of men; be-
cause these are able to seize and pull the
reins of the central administration. No
bureaucracy can hope to make such peo-
pie as this do or undergo anything thatthey
do not like. That I do not mistake or over
state the effect of this legislation of Con-
gress, allow me to analyZe its features. I
confine myself to the one crowning act of
infamy y-the Military bill. Its preamble is
q slandering falsehood, and its enactments
a libel on American manhood, State equal
ity, and Christian charity. 1t is not bill
to restore the States to the Union; but it is
bill to perpetuate discord and disunion;
TO blaeken the hues of the flag and furl its
blazonry of starsI The assumption, of the
bill is to restore the States at some indefinite
time, after some five conditions are COM
piled with. Now this assumption is false;
first, because the conditions are not ia the
power of the Southern States, without CO.
operation North and South second, because
the. time is so indefinite that no one can
certainly say that the States can be re-
stored under it, till after the Presidential
election of 1868, if at all and their absence
from that election will assure Radical rule
for four years more and thirdly, the admis-
sion of the States South is after all made
dependent on the will of Congress. They
expressly reserve it. From the experiment
of the constitutional amendment and its
reputation as a condition of admission,
and from the recent bill of the Radical Ju-
piter-Sumner-we can well understand
thatseyen if the South we're to comply with
all the unconstitutional conditions of the
bill, they have then no assurance of admis-
sion. This is a sad commentary on the
g Il
true one. Fourth. The bill is an expert
ment of unbridled military power over a
free aud brave people, and history teaches
that a bill like this, which subiugateS and
destroys, cannot restore, and that military
subjdgation does not beget allegiance or
give protection to the incentive and reward
OF allegiance. The preamble gives as a
reason for the measure that the Southern
States Government ',afford no adequate
protection to life and property" First.
lFhiS is not reason. but preteXt. 1t is
not true that the State Governments are
failures there. Whether they are de jure
States or not, they are in fact doing the
work and having all the semblance and
boundaries of the old States, whose Origi-
nal Constitutions, modified by circumstance
es, remain. assert that crime is not prev
alent nor protection less enforced there
than in many Northern States. 1t might
be expected that something of disoI der and
crime should result from the state of things
during the war. But. since Grant parOfed
Lees army, and certainly since President
johnson formally proclaimed peace, there
has been no organized resistance to the.
Federal Government. The disturbances
have been exceptional, and if any of them
have the appearance of hatred to Federal
rule, charge that it is the result of the
Radical perfidy which has failed to carry
out the spirit of Grants parole, Lincoln's
charity and the declared object of the war.
But we are in evil days. IL is now states
manship to SANDER communities for the ill
deeds OF few; to regard as rebels whole
States because a few of its scoundrels go un-
punished; to hide the virtues of a general
allegiance by the atrocious libels of anoDy-.
nous letters read in open Senate; to refuse
loyal representatives place in Congress
for the errors and sins of the past; to per-
petuate in hate the victories gained by
blood; to glut tigerish animosity by dis
franchising the fallen-and all under the,
pretext of restoring order and enforcing
protection. Why will not this Congress
take the authentic exposition of the loyal
temper and pacific designs of Texas and
other States, given by her Senators and
Representatives elect, instead of gathering
up the thousand and one stories of cruelty
with which the Northern papers TEEN p
Why not hear the voice of truth, and not
the clamor OF partisans? Second. Suppose
these disturbances exist; is it right or just
that local governments shall at any time be
Overthrown when Congress thinks fit? Are
the Interests of eleven millions of people
and ten States, local and domestic, all held
at the pleas ure of Mr.. Stevens and his ma
jorities? This is not question where reg
iments or troops are in the field against US.
1t is no exercise OF war powers. The war
is ended. Peace exists civilly and really.
In such time can every criminal who eS-
capes imperil the Statehood of Virginia or
louisiana? If these Governments now in
the South are not de jasre legal-and am
! not here to argue that-it does not lie in the
! lips of Radicals to say so. Did they not in
] 1860, in their conventions, indOrse the Pro-
visional Governments? Have they not so
| regarded them for two years? Did they
not submit to them the emancipation
amendment? Are they not in honor and in
law estoppcd by their own legislation? Or
has it come to this that no rule but that of
heal en- defying malignity inspires their
conduct? Let them remember that justice
| lives and revenge dies. Third. This pream-
BILE declares that no loyal State Govern
ments exist in those States. If this be so,
then there is not subject connected with
human affairs, property, marriage, chill
dren, life itself, but is in hopeless litigation
and chaos, it connected in any way with
| what this bill asserts to be - pretended" /"
Government. Supposing that the preamble
were true, it is no justification for the pro-
visions OF the bill. Only hagrant war
! would justify it. Let me examine the Sc
provisions. The first section, initiating the
conduct of Russia toward Poland, divides
the Southern States into military dis
tricts," and makes them subject-''subject"
is the word-to military authority. We
know what that means without the detail
which follows in the second and third sec
tions. Itis not a question as to the leniency
or patriotism of the Brigadiers to be select
ed. The supremacy of the military over
the civil authority may for time be tOlera-
Bile when the military ruler happens to be