Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1868-09-30

Il L
iore' falls short of the occasion, and does
not JUSTIFY the measures that were taken
oy congress, destroying the existing Con-
stltutions and laws of the Southern States.
Inc other theory is that these States were
taken out of the Union by the ordinances
of secession. That is STEVENS theory
That was the rebel theory, and
that too, was the theory to over
throw which we of the North spent
five hundred thousand lives and FIVE or
six thousand millions of money. If these
Southern States were taken out of the
Union by the ordinances of secession, it
was because the secession ordinances were
ern States had the right to secede and the
constitutional right to sustain their seces-
sion by force; and we had no constitutional
right to make war on them for seeding.
Under that theory, they were right and we
of the North wrong in the late war. Under
that theory, the Southern troops were
lighting in holy, constitutional cause, and
we of the North were fighting in an un-
lawful and fiagitious war of conquest. a
He ventured to say that there was not one
soldier out of ten, who entered the Union
armies who would have risked his finger
nail to overthrow the Southern people, un-
less he believed they had no constitutional
right'to secede. 1t was because we believ-
ed that they were violating the Constitu-
and risked or gave up our lives. And this
Radical theory that these States were out
OF the Union, and accordingly Congress
may legislate over them as it pleases, is a
theory which degrades the Union soldier
and insults the memories of the dead who
fell in the cause Of the Constitution and the
Union. But it is fit theory for a'party to
adopt which for three years past, has been
devoting its energies to the destruction of
the Constitution and of the ten States we
fought to restore.
General EWING then at great length ex-
amined their theories of Congressional
reconstruction, and spoke of the destitution
| that reigns supreme over the Southern
States and people, how editors were seized
and sent to the Dry Tortugas for presum-
ing to question the constitutionality, the
patriotism or the policy of these recon-
struction measures. And down in Georgia,
one of the old thirteen States that made
this Republic, where wretch named Ash
burn was killed in a negro brothel by some
men unknown, twenty-four citizens, black
and white, were seized by order of the mill
itary- commanders, and, without even the
mock trial of military commission, were
sent off to the Dry Tortugas, to wear ball
and chain, with shaved heads, under the
flaming sun of the tropics.
When the war broke out in 1851 the Gen.
eral Gnvernme 1t was in the hands of the
Republican party-a minority party, which
had acquired power through the division of
the Democratic party, between Breckin-
ridge and Douglas. The people of the South
entered the conflict in the belief that the
States OF the Union had the rigLt, under
the Constitution, of secession, and almost
all the North in tie belief that no such
right existed. The Northern people were
thoroughly united upon the proposition
that the General Government had the right
to make war against secession or an insur-,
rection against the legal authority of the
Government, but they distrusted the good
faith and honest purpose of the Republican
party. That party, therefore, in order to
unite the people of the Northern States in
support of the war, pledged itself in the
most solemn form, that the war should be
waged solely to restore the Union,
with all the equality, dignity and
rights of the States unimpaired.-I
And when, to get enlistments for the
army, it declared that the purpose of the
war was solely to support the constitu-
tional authority of the General Govern
ment, and hold those States as States in the
Union, leaving them at the end of the war
with all their equality and rights unim-
paired. Thro ughout the war that was the
p olicy of the party. In 1864, when the
war was practically at an end. Mr.. LIN
COLIN declared, in Philadelphia, that the |
war was begun with that worthy object,
and will end when that object shall be at
tanned. 1t was to restore the authority of
the Government. The rights of the con-
quered were to be as sacred and to remain
as intact as the rights of the conqueror. In |
pursuance of these pledges Mr.. LINCOLN,
from time to time, called upon the people |
of these States who were qualified as elec-
tors under the constitutions and laws as
they existed when the war broke out, to |
take steps to reorganize their governments
In order TO resume their relations in the
Union. Four States did that. Congress
during the first four years of the war rec
ognized that as the legitimate ndlproper
mode of restoring the Union. They ad-
mitted Senators and Representatives from
Tennessee and Louisiana; took
the assent Of old Virginia to the forma-
tion of West Virginia, submitted in 1865
the Constitutional amendment abolishing
slavery to the seven State Governments or
ganized by Mr.. JOHNSON, and in ev cry pos
sible way down to that time recognized
these States so being restored on the plan
Of Mr.. LINCoLN and Mr.. JoHNsoN-that is,
by the white electors as actual States in the
Union. When Congress met in 1865, all
the insurrectionary States had resumed
their relations to the Union, had remodel
ed their Constitutions and laws, so as to
abolish slavery and the harsh codes found
ed upon, repudiated the rebel and recog-
nizing the National debt, gave the freedmen
the right to sue in the courts-in fact rec
ognizing, in the most solemn form, every
known object of the war. This settlement,
In 1866, was endorsed by all the Northern
people. The Republican party in all their
State Conventions, except Massachusetts,
this restoration plan of Mr.. LIN
COLIN and MIR. JOHNSON, and congratulated
the country upon the complete restoration
of the Union. The Republican party and
the Democratic party approved the plan,
satisfied to let the white people of the
South have the political control.
Now if the Renublican marty in nowar