The Irish republic. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1867-18??, 1868-02-29
THE IKISH REPUBkIG
CHICAGO, ILL.,, FEBRUARY 90, 1868.
Who is to Rule :?

Who is to Rule?
The question which stands at the head of this article
must now be asked and answered. The case of the
State of Alabama has brought the matter to point
Are the loyal people of the South to be ntrusted with
their own government? Or is the government of the
Southern States and, along with them of the entire
American Union to be handed over to rebels and rebel
sympathizers?
No reasonable would, for a single moment, i'm
agine that there could be any possible difficulty about
the question. Loyal men, by making their breasts bull
wark against the fierce storm of most unnatural and
accursed war; and at unprecedented sacrifice of life
and property saved the Government of this great
try from the destruction designed for it and directed
against it by rebel hearts and hands. Loyal men not
only rescued the South from the whitening blight of
human savery-the one bad black spot on the other
wise stainless escutcheon of the United Staesbut pre-
vented the establishment throughout the length and
breadth of North America, of despotism more mean
and unmany hateful and horrible than any that
has yet disgraced the annals of mankind. America,
from the frozen of the north to the sunny plains of
Mexico is the property of the loyal people of America.
IF that which purchase with money is theirs surely
with blood-the blood of their best and bravest-is
doubly theirs. Therefore, the American Union, and
every State and Territory of that Union ave. and every
inch of the free soil which the national standard
waves should be ruled only, and exclusively by those
who are and were true to the Government And if in
any place. to any extent, different state of things
prevails it is both unconstitutional and Illegal and is
only allowed to exist because designing and dangerous
men have been put into places and permitted to
tinue in them which they ought never to have been
allowed to occupy and which they have long been no.
toriousy using to do by perfdous cunning the infamous
and arocous work which honester traitors failed to do
by open violence
On this vital subject we avow cordial agreement
with one of the best and ablest of the journals of
the Republic--we allude to the New York Tribune
that if there only loyal men in such State as
South Carolina, to these the government of that
State of right belongs and to their hands, and to theirs
only, it ought to be inrusted For if of differ
ent stamp permitted to assume civil and military
authority who believe in the divine right of slavery
Or monarchy, something else equally dangerous and
degrading will not the principle of universal liberty at
once go down will not the freedom of millions of men in
America be swept away? and will not this great Re-
public instead of being the terror Of yants and the
hope of the oppressed, become villanous despotism
which exists only to crush the weak and aggrandze the
strong?
We have stated the principle in its most extreme
form. For no such small and apparently despicable
minority Of truly loyal exists in any State dis
trct Of che country The contrary is well known to be
the fact Even when the late was fercest and hot
test more than half of the real people of the South