The Kenosha telegraph. [volume] (Kenosha, Wis.) 1860-1888, 1867-01-31
SENATOR sHOIIs ON D00LTTTLE,

euOnllLCeu Lue IOllOWluS TelndrhS' 1HtTe
were several speeches made on the occasion,
for and against but none OF them any more
to the point, or more telling, than this OF
Mr. Sholes'.
The course of Senator DooIittIe, in refus-
ing to resign his seat in the United States
Senate in obedience TO the instructions of
the Legislature, is defended on the ground
that by the United States constitution the
Senate is intended to be a conservative
body, the members holding their Office for
six years-that the object of prescribing
so long a term, was to place a Senator
above the influence of local and temporary
excitements and passionate and partial
Judgments of the people, and give him an
opportunity to appeal to the sober second
thought of his constituents and that the
Legislature have no right, except in ex
treme cases, to instruct senator to resign.
That Senator chosen for six years, has
legal right to hold his Office for the full
term for which he was elected, however
much he may misrepresent his constituents,
do not deny. But, unless we repudia;e
the whole theory of representative COVER
nments, he has no moral right to do so
He is chosen, not to represent himself, but
the people of the State OF Wisconsin in the
Senate of the United States. Shall he, by
vote or speech, commit deliberate fraud
upon the people who elected him, and stand
justified in the forum of conscience and in
the moral Judgment of mankind, because he
has the legal power to misrepresent and
betray them To affirm this is to deny the
first principles of representative govern
ment.
That Senator may appeal from hasty
and uniformed judgment of his constitu-
ents to more deliberate and enlightened
one with the hope that cool reflection and
better information may lead to agreement
of opinion, | admit That he may not
obey the command of a Legislature to vio-
late his conscience aud do wickedly, | affirm.
But if, after due reflection and ample op-
portunity to form a correct Judgment, his
constituents still insist through their legis-
Iative authority upon their original instruc-
tions, he must obey or resign. This doc
/ trine, now so strongly contested and repu
dated by Democrats, was cardinal point
of party creed in days, long gone by, when
their party was truly Democratic.
But Senator Doolittle's case does not come
under any of the exceptions or specifications
stated
He cannot plead that the people of the
State have not fairly and deliberately con-
sidered and passed upon the questions in
controversy, for they were the issues at the
last election, and the Senator and his friends
were heard upon them before the people il
all parts of the State.
Let us briefly examine his record and see
how far he can plead principle in the mat
ter, how far his acts have been consistent
with themselves, and how much foundation
there is for his oft repeated assertion In hi
own defence, that it is the party which cleo
ted him and not he that has swerved from
the track
He has declared himself in favor of negro
suffrage, except in the rebel States, auC
boasted of his devotion to that doctrine
from early manhood.
1t was a doctrine of his that rebels anC
traitors should be crushed under the feet O.
Union men and he fervently prayed fo
the day when the Union men of the rebe
States should get the power into their hand
that vengeance might be executed upor
traitors for their gigantic crimes crimes
/
guage, than had ever before been commit
ted on earth.-He was in favor of the con
fiscstion of rebel property, as well as fo
vengeance upon their persons, and intro
duced bill for this purpose in the Senate
in the advocacy of which he said:
''My anglo Saxon instincts for land My
desire to punish, aye, to destroy the leaders
of these Internal traitors, who have brought
OH this war against the best Cover nment
on earth; are as strong at
those of any other man, / would
take their lands and let our soldiers
buy them and occupy them. | would take
their lands and let the poor non -slaveholding
whites around them enter them and even
take pre-. emption rights in the unoc
cupied lands of rebel chieftains throughout
all the insurrectionary districts"
He favored and voted for the Constitu
tional amendment abolishing slavery.
He advocated a further Constitutional
amendment, and as a curtailment of the
power of rebel States on their restoration tc
the Union if they failed Or refused to Ell
franchise the colored man, viz ''that rep
resentation in Congress should be based up
on voting population" In the State Con
vention which nominated Gov. FairchiId,
he succeeded in making this a part of the
Republican State platform.
He voted for the Freedmen's Bureau bill
and so anxious was he to be known as the
friend of the Civil rights bill, that he sought
occasion in his place in the Senate to state
that though absent from his seat. when the
vote was taken upon it, had he been present,
he should have voted for it. In all these,
and to this extent he was recognized as a,
faithful Republican Senator, representing
honestly and consistently his own CO nvi
tions, and the will of his constituents, ex-
cept perhaps in his extreme radical notions
concerning the confiscation of rebel property,
and destruction of rebels.
But how stands his record since and now?
What has become of his devotion to the
principle of equal suffrage? His speech and
and vote on the District suffrage bill show
that the doctrines of his early manhood, his
regard for just principle, and proper sense
of duty and responsibility to his constituents,
have all gone together.
Where is the vengeance that in his
view should be executed upon traitors ''for
their gigantic crimes, greater than had ever
before been committed on EARTH
Leu his loving eHlDTdCo ol Ine deepest
dyed of them all in the Philadelphia Conven-
ton, and his constant efforts to restore this
class, unrepentant, and without condition or
restriction, to political power in the country,
answer.
The vengeance he favors now is not upon
traitors, but upon the Union men of the
South, illustrated by the murders at Mem
phis and New Orleans, as the direct results
Of the Presidential policy he sustains
And that strong desire of his to punish
aye, to destroy the leaders of the Internal re-
bellion; how is this finding expression He
is not even willing, now, to favor the pro
posed Constitutional provision to exclude, at
the will of Congress, those of this class who
have added perjury to their other gigantic
crimes, from the simple privilege of holding
federal offices. And he denounces this mild