Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1867-09-26
RUTLAND HERALD.
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 1867.
The Peril OF the Hsur.

The people nave not Whoiiy ioisosVohi
perhaps, that nearly year ago the
telegraph announced that the President
had sent certain questions to the Attor-
ney General requesting his opinions
thereon; Nor can they have forgotten
the universal scorn that repudisted the
rumors which were then afeat in refer-
ence to the rash course TO be taken by
the Executive relative TO the assembling
Of Congress.
The questions which were then pur-
ported to have been submitted for the con-
siderstion OF the legal adviser OF the
government were, Whether Congress
was an illegal and unconstitutional
assemblage, composed as 1t was Of the
Northern States only, and would the
President be justified in sending his
message to such . body? Also, whether
the Constitution gave the House the
right to exclude the members from ten
States, and II the Presidents oath re-
quired him to enforce those provisions
Of the Constitution which give to each
State an equal right of representation in
Congress, and what steps the President
was required to take in order to secure
the assemblage Of Constitutional
Congress?"
At that time 1t was supposed that the
President would take his stand upon the
decision OF the Attorney General. This
it will be recollected was just after and
in connection with the bold utterances
of. the Executive at the Fifth Avenue
Hotel in New York, that "the present"
was only "an assumed Congress" and
"not the Congress the Constitution
called for" and similar declarations,
though less pointed, which fell from his
lips prior to his return to the capital.
These were mere rumors Of the hour,
and were deemed at the time chimerical,
but within the last few days all that
was then suggested has been boldly
threatened, and there are politicians not
only sustaining 1t but threatening to go
to war to enforce it. The recent am
nesty proclamation of the President Is
intended to force rebels into Congress,
Gen. Grant will in all probability be d.
rected to order his military officers to
register rebels under the proclamation,
and he will refuse, and In consequence
be removed for one more subservient to
the will OF the executive, and efforts
made to carry the October elections in
the South by intimidation. The present
Attorney General has supported far
worse outrages than that proposed last
year in the reported queries put to him,
and the politicians of the treason stamp
fatter themselves that the people are
dead to patriotic duty, and ready to
sanction usurpation, but they will be
prepared, we imagine, to flee as they did
then, before the wrath of an awakened
people.
The traitors who long ago yielded to
the victory of the sword hail the cleo
ton in California, produced by Republi'
can divisions as the cry of the masses
for the rule of Davis or Lee. We are
unable to determine where the amnesty
proclamation will lead the country, un
less rebuked with universal scorn
Every step the President is taking ap
pears like revolution and war, and thu
only way of arresting his high career by
giving him full evidence that the feeling
that destroyed the rebellion is not ex
tinct. The success of the reconstruction
measures of Congress have not prompted
his new schemes, they have doubtless in
furiated him-but this plan of restoring
rebels to power had an earlier history
Therefore he is not likely to abandon hi
scheming and the people must look a
these facts as they appear and prepare t.
meet any consequences that may flow
from them,