Nashville union and dispatch. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1866-1868, 1867-11-01

The constitution as it is, involves
inequalities in this particular among the
citizens of the different States, and would
not amend it to remove them; it works no
mischief for We are all one people, of the
same race, Of like intelligence, in all things
alike, morally and socially. Bat L would
not amend the constitution TO increase il
where il exists, or to create il where il ex-
ists not and, especially, would not give
this enormous excess of power to men Of
different race, who are not and can never
be our associates; of whom we know little
socially except that they are ignorant and
| degraded, and nothing politically. except
that they have always been, and are, a dis
] turbing element in our system. Their
/ degradation ignorance and immorality,
1 the bitter fruits of slavery and oppression,
4 entitle them to our commisseration, but DO
not entitle them to place SO much above
us in the scale of political power. 1t would
be much smaller concession by MS TO the
African, and more reasonable and just, to
give each negro in Ohio ten votes, than to
give the negro in the SouthSihe power over
us, in the union inyolyed in this plan of
reconstruction. IL may be said, and truly,
that this ineqaalify will be but temporary
that but one generation of prescribed white
men have 10 die Of, and all will be right;
a white man in the North viii al length
become equal to a negro in the South. This
is true-egen less than the truth. 1t il
impossible that these proposed negro re-
publics shall, in their own action, ever |
come into being; or, ifstreated by external |
power, shall stand alone for a siugle mo- |
ment. There will be no attempt to carry |
them out or any pretense of the kind, |
beyond the next Presidential election. In |
the meantime there will be war to the knife |
of black against white; of barbarism and |
poverty and power combined against intel |
ligence and property which can be re-
strained only by military power; and the
United States will be compelled TO keep up |
standing armies in all the reconstructed |
States until they shall be again recon-
structed. During this process, the five
Brigadier Generals viii not only be auto
cracts each of his district, but will control
the vote of the nine States, and send to the
Senate eighteen Senators, TO the House
eightyNtwo members, and give, in the cleo
toral college one hundred votes for Presi-
dent. This will be better than the pro-
posed negro supremacy, as our military /
OllCcTs are S6uerdlIy HuuldIe duu lutelIl~
gent men, and know how to govern but it
were not well TO invest even them with
such exorbitant power
But look further to consequences. If
there shall be majority of constitutional
votes for one candidate for the Presidency,
and if the one hundred military electors,
added to the minority, make a majority of
the whole, there will arise question which
can be decided only by the sword and the
army of the South, if united under their
five Generals, will settle the question of
legitimacy at Washington, as the Preto-
risn guard were wont to DO at Rome, and
the Janissaries at Constantinople.
For these reasons, l concur with the
President in disapproVing this Congress.
sional plan ofreconstruction ; and the vote Il
at the late election in Ohio has strongly
pronounced the disapproval of the people, /
and their objections will not be removed
when they consider it in connection with
its attendant consequences"