Raftsman's journal. [volume] (Clearfield, Pa.) 1854-1948, 1867-12-11

bitrarlly declaring who shall vote and who
shall be excluded from that privilege to
dissolve State Legislatures or prevent them
from reassembling; to dismiss judges and
other civil functlonarles of the State, and
appoint others without regard to State law;
TO organize and operate all the political ma
chlnery OF the States; to regulate the whole
administration of their domestic and local
affairs according to the mere will of strange
and irresponsible agents, sent among them
Tor that tpurpose-these are not powers gran
ted to the Federal Government or to any
one of Its branches. Not being granted
we violate our trust by assuming them as
palpaby as We would by acting in the face
OF positive lnterdict for the Constitution
torhlds US to do whatever it does not affirm
atlvely authorize either by express words or
by clear implication If the authority we
desire to use does not come to US through
the Constitution, we can exercise il only by
usurpation; and usurration is the most
dangerous of political crimes. By that
crime the enemies of free government in all
ages have worked out their designs against
public liberty and private right. 1t leads
directly and Immediately to the establish
ment OF absolute rule for undelegated pow
er is always unlimited and unrestrained.
The acts of Congress in question are not only
Objectionable for their assumption of ungranted
power, but many of their provisions are in con-
fict with the direct prohi hibions of the Constitu-
ton The Constitution commands that a repuoli
can form of government shall be guaranteed to
ali the States that no person shall be deprived
of life, liberty or property without due process of
law. arrested without judicial warrant pun
ished without fair trial, before an impartial ju
ry; that the privilege of ha5eas corp~s shall ot
be denied in time of peace; and that no bill of
att"inder shall he passed against a single
individual. Yet the system of measures estab-
1Sba hv hose of Con d.aS oil h
vert and destroy the form well as the Instance
of republican government in the ten States to
which they apply. 1t binds them hand and foot
IN absolute slavery and subjects them to strange
and hostile power more unlimited and more like
ly to be abused than any other now known among
civilized men. 1t tramples down all those rights
in which the essence of liberty consists and which
a fr' government IS always most careful to pro-
tect 1t denies the habeas cOrpus and the trial by
jury. Personal freedom property, and life, if
assailed by the passion. the prejudice, or the
pacity of the ruler, have no security whatever.
1t has the effect of bill of attainder, or bill of
pains and penalties, not upon few individuals.
but upon whole masses, including the millions
who inhabt the ubiect States. and even their un-
born children. These wrongs, being expressly for
hidden, cannot be constitutionaliy inflicted upon
any portion of our people, no matter how they
may have come within our Jurisdiction. and no
matter whether they live in States, Territories or
districts
L have no desire to save from the proper and
just consequences of their great crime those who
but mode of punishment the measures under
consideration the most unreasonable that
could be Invented Many of those people are
perfectly Innocent; many kept their fidelity to
the ULion untainted to the last; many we're inca
pabc of any legal offense; large proportion
even of the persons able to bear arms were forced
into rebellion against their viii and of those
who guilty with their own consent the de-
grees of guilt are as various as the shades of
their character and temper. But these acts of
Congress confound them altogether in one COM
mon doom Indiscrimnate vengeance upon
classes, sects or parties, or upon whole communl
ties, for offenses committed by. portion of them
against the government to which they owed obe-
dience was common in barbarols ages of the
world. But Christianity and civilization have
III ads such progress th atrecourse to a punishment
cruel and unjust would meet with the condem-
nation of all unprejudiced and right minded men
The punitive justice of this age, and especlaiy
of this country does consist in stripping whole
States, of their lib rites, and reducing all their
people, without distinction, to the condition OF
slavery. 1t deals separately with each indlyld-
ual, confines itself to the forms of law and vind-
Gates its own purity by an impartial examination
of every case before competent Judicial trlbu-
nal If this does not sa tisfy all our desires with
regard to Southern rebels let us console ourselves
by rejecting that tree Constltutontrlnmpnaht
in war and unbroken in peace, is worth far more
to and children than the qualification of
any present feeling.
[ am aware it is assumed that this system of
governme ent for the Southern States is MT TO be
perpetual Ii is true this military government
is to be only provisional but it is through this
temporary evil that a greater evil is to be made
perpetual. IF the guarantees of the Constitution
can be broken Professionally to serve a temporary
purpose, and in part only of the country, we
can destroy them everywhere and for ali time
Arbitrary measures often change, but they gener-
ally change for the 1t is the curse of des-
potism that it has no halting place The inter
mitted exercise of its power brings sense of
security to its subjects; for they can never know
what more they will be called to endure when
its red right hand is armed to plague them again.
Nor is it possible to con mcclure how ~br where
power, unrestrained by law, may seek its next
victims The States that are still free may be en-
shaved at any moment for if the Constitution does
not protect all, it protects none
1t is m anifestly and avowedly the object of
these laws to confer upon negroes the privilege
of voting and to disfranchise such a number OF
white citizens will give the former clear ma
jority at all elections in the Southern States This,
to the minds of some persons is SO important that
O violation of the Constitution is justified as a
means of bringing 1t about. The morality Is al
ways false which excuses wrong because 1t pro-
poses TO accomplish desirable end. We are not
permitted to do evil that good may come. but
IN this the end itself is evil, well as the
means. The ubjugation of the States to negro
domination would be worse than the military des-
potism under which they suffering. IL
was believed beforehand that the people would
endure any amount of military oppression, for
any length of time, rather than degrade tnem-
selves by subsection to tn negro race. Therefore
they have been left without choice. Negro sur
fr2ge was esIapilsHeu ny Ol OOUSfcsS oHN -
military officers were commanded to supcri nteno
the process of clothing the negro race with the
political privileges torn from white men.
The blacks in the South are entitled to be well
and humauely governed, and to have the protee,
ton of Just laws for all their rights of person ana
property. If it were practicable at this time 10
give them government exclusively their own own
under which they mig hit manage their own anaiis ~
in their own way. it would become grave ques
ton whether ought to do so, or whether COIN, com
mon humanity would not require us to save mem Ai
from themselves But under the circumstances,