The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1868-08-10

the greater OF lle Two uCnleVeIneHLSj LOT
the reason that it will be enduring. The
ballot is
a weapon tinner SET
And truer than the bayonet.
1t is the omnipitence of great people, by
which they ordain constitutions of gov
eminent, by which they elect representa-
tive assemblies, by which they choose ex.
ecutiye officers to execute their law and
do their will.
The question in 1868 may be stated in
a few simple words-words so plain and
20 simple that even a wayfaring man can
not err therein. 1t may be stated thus:
Shall the Republic survive or perish ?
Or it may be stated thus:
After the struggle of four years by arms
for the maintenance of the Constitution,
will the people by the ballot in 1868 com.
nit their institutions to the friends of
those institutions or to the keeping OF the
enemies of those institutions?
1t is as true, my countrymen, in 1868
as it was in 1861, or throughout the pro.
gress of this great conflict, there is no
room in this broad land of ours for any
parties but two: the party of patriots and
the party of traitors cheers 1.-THE party
that is for the supremacy of the Constitu-
ton and the party that is against 1.-THE
party that is for the unity of the Republic
and the party that is for its dismember-
ment. There is not n man connected
with this miserable rebel organization
North, South, East or West, who leads,
who directs, who controls the action of
that party and who is prominent this day
before the people for their sutfrages, who
dares to sneak as / have already spoken
this night within your hearing in favor of
the supremacy of the Constitution and
and the unity of the Republic. If Sey-
mour ever says word of that sort he
whispers it in dreams. [Laughter.l 1t
finds no place in the thing called
the Democratic platform of princi-
pies announced in the city of New York,
somewhere between the fourth and ninth
of July last. A voice "AIy friends ~
Not word of the sort. They attempt
to make side issues with the American
people-to switch you off OH side track
Ito direct your attention from the great
issue before you, and that is whether you
will restore, reconstruct, build up the
shattered and broken Union; whether, in
addition to that, you will take new secure
ties for the future 80 as to make like re-
bellion hereafter impossible in this. land.
That is the want of the Republic to-day.
In the grand words of your Declaration,
it is the right and the duty of a people to
make from lime to time new guards for
their future safety. During all the past
the last thirty years,
all over the South the young men were
taught to believe that it was a reserved
right OF the several States of this Union
TO annul the acts of the peoples represent
atives in Congress assembled, and finally
to sever the sacred ties which bind to-
gether the various parts of this Union and
dissolve it "like the baseless fabric of q
vision" There were no words written
in the Constitution with such sufficient
plainness as to put down forever this
miserable heresy; and, hence, the young
intellect of the South, under the instruc-
ton of such master spirits as Calhoun,
McDuffie, and Hamilton, and scores of
others that might name but whose
names will readily recur to you, was fully
indoctrinated in the belief that the high.
est sovereignty in this land was the soy.
ereignty of each of the several
States; and that the National
Government, in the words of
Calhoun, was but a simple "agency,n
the principals of which were the several
independent and sovereign States of this
Union. Believing thus, they seeded in
eleven Southern States aud declared
themselves separate confederation. The
young men were without excuse, for God
had given them the gift of intellect. They
knew the use of right reason; they un-
derstood our mother tongue. They might
have read in the Constitution of the coun-
try the plain, strong words which Wash
ington and his illustrious associates placed
there, that no State shall enter into any
confederation, agreement or alliance with
any other State. Yet, nevertheless, be-
lieving rs they did believe that the States
were absolute sovereignties, each soyer-
eign for itself within its territorial limits,
they did secede-they did revolt-they did
rebel, and ridgcd this land all over with
the graves of hundreds of thousands of
the noblest and best of the land, who laid
down their lives n sacrifice for the perpe.
tuity OF American institutions. An.
plause.l
The great people who sent out million
and n half of men to uphold your flag
during these four years of armed conflict,
not simply, as said, against million of
our countrymen, but against the represent
tatives of every despotism upon the face
of the earth-resolved by Him who
liveth forever and ever" that the sacrifice
should not he made in vain, but that they
would so amend and so reorganize their
constitution ofgovernment as to put an end
forever more to this claim of the soyer-
eighty of the State being superior to the
sovereignty of the nation. Applause. ]
Hence, in lS66-the year after the close
of the armed contiict-the representatives
of the people, in pursuance of the express
letter of the Constitutions and of the man
ifest will of the great people who had
triumphed so gloriously in battle from the
waters of the Potomac to the waters of
the Rio Grande, submitted to the Ameri-
can people for their consideration an
amendment to the Constitution of the
United States, which would, if adopted by
the people and made part of the Constitu-
ton, forever end the question of the SOW
ereiguty of State being supreme over
the sovereignty of the nation, and of the
asserted right of State secession and of
the right of any State to repeal the laws
and the Consultation, despite the nations
will, and of the right of the State to levy
B.