Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1867-11-02
Governmen, in tho south.

senting voice in the Government. 1t is no
mere privilege to be taken away at the
whim of majorities, but an inalienable right,
which can only be forfeited by natural or
civil DEATH"
The Reconstruction bill, therefore, is
civil death, since it disfranchises large |
number of citizens in the South. This Is a
good name, and we thank the Journal for
its apt nomenclature. But after death. as |
the Journal knows, comes the judgment,
and we bid it look for speedy condemna-
tion of that sum of iniquity.-Ne,o York
World.
To which the Journal of Thursday re-
spends as follows:
"a large number of citizens in the South"
have committed civil suicide, and so de-
citizenized themselves. Any criminal who
commits felony does the same thing, by
our law. But, although dead so far as all
privileges as citizen are concerned. he
cannot relieve himself from the punishment
due his crime Society may restore his
forfeited citizenship for good conduct or
such other reason as may seem proper
Congress, with uneXampled leniency, has
provided means in the Reconstruction
Bill through which doubtless every "citi-
zen in the South" may secure restoration
to his former status, voluntarily and GRIM
inally abandoned.
The idea that any man can be deprived OF
his civil rights, before arrest, indictment.
trial and conviction, is a doctrine that has
no parallel for its absurdity, save in that 9TH
er Radical doctrine that because certain
persons commit.,a crime in State, that.
therefore, State is to be deprived of its
constitutional rights.
The charge against the white men of the
South is that they took part in the late re-
bellion, and therefore the South is to be
disfranchised. All did not take part. yet
all are disfranchised. In every State,
county and village of the ten States now
governed as conquered provinces" there
were Union men during the war, and until
after its close. Yet they are punished just
as much as the guilty, by being deprived of
the right of citizenship. So strong was
the Union sentiment in the South at the
commencement and after the war had
commenced, that President LINCOLN gave
it as his deliberate opinion, in one of his
messages or letters, that, save aud except
in the State OF South Carolina, there was
not State in the South but had majority
in favor of the old Union, and this fact, as
true as any words that Mr.. LINCOLN wrote,
makes the Congressional Reconstruction
scheme, if anything can do so, the more
Infamous and unjust.
Every man of those Union loving citi-
zens is ostracised because they have their
residence in the South-pot allowed sin
gle right that the Constitution guarantees
to them. and having no voice in the control
of Governmental affairs.
The white race, in the States of Georgia,
North and South Carolina, Mississippi,
Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Florida, Ark
ansas and Virginia, are all under the ban
all branded as rebels and opponents of the |
Government, no matter how much they
suffered in the Union cause, and have no
representation to look after their interests
in the lower branch of Congress. and none
to represent the State and its people in the
Senate of the United States. They are
taxed without representation in Congress
the amount each man worth $1,000 pays
being twenty times as much as the same
man would have had to pay under the
Stamp and other acts of the British Par
lament, when the assumption of taxation
without representation produced the war
of the Revolution and lost to England her
Thirteen American Colonies.
All the white men in the South during
treated by the Reconstruction bills as Sc
cessionists and traitors-all the negroes of
the South as Union men and friends. Be-
cause of this. the Reconstruction laws gave
all the negroes the right to vote, and the
Freedmen's Bureau not only enforce this
pretended right, but treat the black race
as if they and they alone, of all the peo-
pie of the South, had rights that the Gov
ernment was bound to respect.
Had it. not been for the negroes of the
South, the rebellion would have collapsed
during the second year of the war, if not
duri lg the first. Nearly the entire white
population, by enforced conscriptiop, were
dragged into the army-the negroes re-
at home raised the provisions nee
e;sary for the support of the women
and children and to. furnish the supplies
needed for the army. Those that could be |
spared from that service dug in the trenches
were attached as labore1s to the eE-
gineer corps and in other ways aided in
the rebellion. Their hatred against the |
North was more intense than that of the
most vindictive of the Southern men in
arms, because more ignorant, and their
cruelty and vindictiveness was one reason
why they were not suffered to bear arms,
because, it was said, they would take no
prisoners. All these men are now freemen
to this class, ignorant, bigoted, supersti
tious, and, in their freedom, fast relapsing
into the African superstition of their faith
srs, worshiping the wooden and reptile Gods
Of the God of the civilized man, is given
the political power of the ten States of the
South, and led by demagogues, whose bid
1ing they do, are fast making the South
desert and place where the white man
cannot live with any sense OF security.
Unless these unconstitutional acts of
half made up Congress are endorsed by the
South, and that fair portion of the white
mems heritage is given up to the tender
mercies of the Negro, who is to do the
voting, and the former master become the
slave of his late slave. The destruction acts
of Congress proposes to continue this state
of things. in order that the South, being |
allowed no vote at the next Presidential |
election-no representation in Congress-
may continue the present party in power
and thus make the boasted Republic of the
North, exercise despotism over large
portion of its territory, greater than that
which the Emperor of Austria or the Gar
Of Russia ever dared to exercise over Po-
and or Hungary, and as inhuman as the
English laws against Irish Catholics, blot
t I'd from the statute book during the