The tri-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1866-1868, 1867-03-12

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the benefit of the exercises, but you can not
-be priests or elders at this time. Your hands
are still red with the blood of your brethren,
whom We slew while they were struggling to
save the Ark of the Covenant, and the fires
of resentment and pride arc still smouldcring
in your hearts. But even were this not so,
it is not reasonable or seemly that the de-
stroyers of the peace and happiness of the
country should ut once become the conserva-
tors of that peace and the promoters of that
happiness. Stand aside for the present.
AS you have lost position by your bad con-
duct. so you shall regain it only by your
good conduct. We will not judge you harsh
ly, but tenderly and kindly as brethren. We
do not punish you. We simply put you on
your good behavior for the future; and If
you repent and do well, and manifest sim
cere purpose to become loyal, Unionloving
citizens, it will afford us much pleasure to
remove the disability, and allow you to hold
Office. What could be more reasonable or
generous But we are told by those who
are thus excluded that the object is to pun
ish and degrade them. If this be true, it
Furnishes and degrades Union men also. 1t
puts under ban nearly all the leading Union
men of the State. Our opponents are can.
did for once. They admit that it is pun
ishment to be excluded from office, and they
have been so long i'll Office that they feel ''de-
graded" when they are cast out. These
very leaders punished our people for four
long years. They tithcd them, they i'm
pressed them, they conscribed them, forcing
even the yearling boys from their weeping
mothers into camp, and into the fire of bat
tie, before their bones had hardcned,--they
bounded down our best citizens as traitors,
and shot and hanged them, because they
loved the Union and the tlag,-they plumber
ed, exhausted, impoverished, and ruined this
people and yet now complain, after hay
ing inflicted all these wrongs on their coun-
try, that they arc about to be punished, be-
cause they are not to be allowed to monopo-
lie for all time all the Offices and honors !!
l regard this provision as generous and
mercilul in its character. 1t seems to Inc if
these politicians thus excluded really loved
their country, they would sacrifice themselves
temporarily for the good of their country
If they really desired the restoration Of the
Union, or if they only had becoming modes
ty and sclf-rcspcct, they would not stand in
the way, but would come forward like pa
triots and men and beg to be overlooked or
forgotten until the great work was accom-
plished. They would say, our country first,
our country last, our country all the time
The issue is, the Union of the States with
thesepersons temporarily out ofoffice; or con-
tinued disunion, discomfort, and probable
civil war, with these persons in office. That
man is no patriot, but is supremacy selfish,
who would retain his hold on Office, when
he knows he is doing SO at the expense of
the unity, harmony and prosperity of his
country.
The remaining section of the proposed
hat nI>
shall never be questioned and that the re-
bel debt shall be held illegal and void
Here, also, we have the concurrence and en-
dorscnent of the President. repeatedly made
known i'll the most emphatic manner.
am satisfied that if these States had done
what was required of them with alacrity
and cheerluness. and had sent Senators and
Representatives who to man, could have
taken thetcst-oath. their claim to he admitted
to their seats would have been irresistible.
The Union would have been restored last
December. We should have had peace and
harmony to-day. and reviving and increasing
prosperity, instead of chickering's, and dis
cord, and sectional hate, and threats of rcvo-
luton, and the locking up, as the result of
these things of all those resources which
stimulate and reward enterprise and indus
try. But such was the destructive and par
alyzing influence of the spirit of secession
among our people and in our public coun-
ellis, that the Congress, which is 4 constitu-
tiOnal co worker with the President in these
things. began to doubt the fitness of the
States for admission. That body, without
undoing what the President had done. at
length required that what the States had
agreed to do in their amended Constitutions,
or by ordinances of Conventions, or by legis-
lative enactment, should be enGrafted in the
law of the nation. That is
all. The proposed amendment in relation to
in Congress- is the legitimate
result, as | have already shown, of the OK
tinction of slavery. There is not a principle
in any section of the proposed amendment
which has not received, in some form or 9TH
er, the approval of the President IT, there
fore, our people agree with the President,
and if they are disposed to carry out in good
faith what they have already conceded, (to
say nothing of the respect which they owe to
the law-making department of the govern
should not settle this business finally and
forever by placing these guarantees in the
national fundamental law. There was no
time within sixty days after the surrender of
Lees forces when they would not have &C
copied such terms gladly. I state the fact,
that it was distinctly understood that the
whole work of restoration would be
subject to the revision, and, consequently, to
acceptance or rejection by the Congress-
The official record shows that Secretary Sew
ard informed Gov. Sharkey in July, 1865,
that the government of Mississippi would be
provisional only until the civil authorities
shall be restored, with the approval of Con-
gress." And in September, 1865, he also in
formed Gov. Marvin of Florida, that ait
must be distinctly understood that the res
toration to which your proclamation refers,
will be subject to the decision of Congress"
L repeat the Congress has expressly and in
tentionally omitted to undo the work of the
President. The very able, enlightened, and
patriotic committee of that body, after the
fullest and most anxious elaboration, de-
termined that the present State governments,
by the President, should stand
but they recommended, as necessary to COM
plete the work of restoration, that the
to the Constitution to which
have referred, should be adopted. IF it be
said that the Southern States were excluded
from the Congress by which these amendments
were proposed, the answers, they had no voice
IN proposing the most vital of all the amend
ments, the one which abolished slavery. IF
it be necessary further to amend the Consti-
tuition, as two-thirds of the American people
represented in Congress think tbs, before the
Union can be re-establshed on just, solid,
and enduring basis, such amendments must
ho ,,roposn1 NV Honuroco for +l,o Dro.;l.L