Delaware gazette. [volume] (Delaware, Ohio) 1855-1886, 1868-11-20

/ Department. and it is further added
/ that 'sits decision II binding on every
I other department Of the government, and
/ can not be questioned in a judicial tri-
! bunal." In the face Of these peremptO-
/ ~ words, it is difficult to see what
headway can be madein contesting TIE
/ validity of the reconstruction acts,
/ except by arms. If ever a question was
/ political, it is this, 1t is political, in
every aspect, whether regarded as
1 springing from the necessity of the case
! from the rights OF war, from the obll-
/ CATION 70 guarantee republican gov
/ ernment, or from the power to enforce
! the abolition of slavery. Never before
was any question presented so COM
! pletely political. Reconstruction is as
! political as the war, or as any of the
means for its conduct. 1t is political
/ from beginning to end It is nothing
4 if not political. Therefore, by unas-
| sailable precedents under the Constitu-
tiOn are these acts fxed and secured SO
! that no Court can touch them; nothing
but the war which Mr.. Blair has
menaced.
EQUAL RIGHTS NECESSITY OF RECON
sTRUCTIoN.
| The equal rights conferred upon the
/ freedman are all placed under this safe
guard. Congress has done this great
/ act of justice, and, thank God it can
not be undOne. 1t has already tt Ken
4 its place in the immortal covenants of
+ history, and become q part of the har-
/ monies of the universe As we'll attempt
/ to undo the Declaration of Independence
or suspend the law of gravitation. This
can not be. The Bloody horrors of San
/ Domingo, where France undertook to
| cancel emancipation, testify with a
| voice of wall, that race once lifted to
| equal rights can not be again degraded.
| Human rights, when at last obtained
can not be Wrested-back without con-
| fiict, in which God will rage against the
| oppressor.
But do not content myself by show
| ing the essential stability of this meas
ure of reconstruction. I defend it in
all respects. not only as an act of es-
sential justice, without which our ma
| ton would be C defOrmity, but as an ir-
resistible necessity for the sake of that
security without which peace is impos-
sible. II IS enough that justice CONAN
ded If; but the public eXigency left no
opportunity for any hne-spun system,
with educational or pecuniary cOndi-
tions, even if shis were consistent with
the fundamental principle, that 'all just
governments stand onlV on the consent
of the governed" As the strong arm
of this despised race has been needed
for the safety of the Republic, 50 were
their votes needed now. The cause was
the same. Without them loyal govern
!
organized. To enfranchise those only
who could read or write, or pay a GER
tain tax, was not enough. They were
too few. All the loyal are needed at
the ballot-boX to couuter-balance the
dis loyal.
1t was at this time and under that
pressure that conditions, educational or
pecuniary, were seen to be inadmissible
and many, considering the question
in the Light of principle, were led to ask
if under anY circumstances such condi-
tions were JUST Surely an unlettered un-
ioDfst is better than a rebel, hoWsoever
learned or wise; and on all practical
questions will vote more nearly right.
If there is to be exclusion, let It be of
the dislOyal and not of the loyal. No
body can place the value of educa-
ton too high; but is it to make the pre-
requisite to any right of citizenship
There are many whose only school has
been the rough world, in whom char
acter is developed to a rare degree
There are freedmen, unable to read or
write, who are excellent in all respects.
If willing to reject such persons as al
lies can you justly exclude them from
participation in the Government? Can
you justly exclude any good citizen from
such participation?
Thus far have shown the reconstruc-
tion acts to be constitutional, natural
end valid, in contradiction to the rebel
platform, asserting them to be uncon-
stitut.Onal, YOlutienarYs and void But
these acts may be seen in other aspects.
I have show n what they accomplish.
REVIVAL OF SLAVERY IN A NEW TYPE.
Are you ready for the revival of slav-
cry? L put this question plainly; for
this is involved in the irreversibility of
the reconstruction acts. >
I have here a congressional document
containing the cruel legislation OF the
rebel States, Immediately after the close
of the rebellion, under the inspiration
of the Johnson governments. Here are
its diabolical statutes, fashioned in the
spirit of slavery with all that heartless-
ness which gave to slavery its distinc-
tive character. The emancIpated Afri-
can, shut out from all participation in
the Government, despoiled of the ballot
was enmeshed in web of laws, which
left him no better than fly in the tolls
Of a spider. If he moved away from
his place of toll he was caught up as a
"vagrant;' If he sought work as me-
chanic or by the job, he was constrain-
ed by the requirement OF "license;"
If he complained of a white man, he
was subjected to the most cunning i'm
pediments; if he bought arms for self
defense, he was a ViolatOr of law: and
thus wherever he went, or whatever he
attempted, he was perpetual victim.
lease any lands or tenements except in
incorporated towns" =" thus keeping him
a serf attached to the soil of his master.
Looking at these provisions critically,
it appears, that while pretending to reg
ulate vagrants, apprentices, licenses and
civil rights, the freedman was degraded
to the most abject conditions; and then
under pretense for the public peace, he
was shut out from opportunities of
knowledge and also from keeping arms
while he WIS subjected to odious and
exceptional punishment at the pillory,
the stocks, the whipping post and sale
for fine and costs. Behind al / these was
violence, az sassination, murde~, with
the Ku-Ktux- Klan constitutit he law
less police of this new sNs EN-. The
whole PIC ure is too horr bile in the
face OF tUis unansWerabIe evidence,
who will say that it was not proposed
to revive slavery? To call such q con-
dition liberty is prepOsterous. If not a
slave ofthe old type, the freedman was
slave of new type, invented by his
uurepentant master as substitute
for what he had surrendered to the pow
er of the nation. Beginning with a
caste as offensive and irreligiOus as that
of HindoOstan, and adding to it the
pretensions of an Oligarchy In govern
ment, the representatives of the old
system were preparing to trample up
on an oppressed race. The soul sickens
at the thought.