The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1868-08-08
The Real Question.


public credit We must have President who
will execute the will of the people by tramp
ling into dust the usurpations of Congress
known as the Reconstruction acts. | wish to
stand before the Convention upon this issue,
but 1t is one which embraces everything else."
Frank was entirely right-this is the real
and only question; this does embrace every
thing else. Shall the Constitutional Amend
ment now solemnly incorporated in the foun-
dation Of all our law, remain For this amend
ment Is the Congressional plan of reconstruc-
tion. The subsequent measures we're adopted
in order to secure the success of the amend
ment; and now that the amendment has be-
come part Of the Constitution, and is so pro-
claimed by the Secretary of State, the military
bills are Of no further effect; they pass out Of
existence. Military rule at the South, in all
the States which have adopted the amendment,
is at an end. 1t was never intended to be
more than temporary, and its aim having been
accomplished, it ceased.
The real issue now before the people, that
which they must decide at the next Presiden-
tial election, is-shall the fourteenth amend
ment stand as a part of the fundamental law
of the land Let us see what this means.
The first section of the amendment fixes the
status of the negro, matter which is as ne
cessary for the enforcement of the legal rights
of the white man as of the black. Under the
Dred Scott decision, the Constitution was held
to confer no rights of citizenship upon negroes;
and, so far as individuals are concerned, the
| judicial power of the United States extends
only to cases affecting citizens or foreigners. A
| negro, therefore, could be party to no suit
| brought in a United States court. If a colored
man committed tort, held property unjustly,
or infriDged on the rights OF a citizen in an
other State he could not be sued nor made
| amenable to United States law. 1t is as i'm
portant, therefore, to whites as to blacks that
the first section of the amendment should be
| undisturbed.
The second section secures the right of white
men, North and South, to equal representa-
tion. Before the war, representation was ap-
| portioned according to the whole number of
| free persons, with the addition of three-ffths
| of ''all others''-the ''others'' being slaves.
| The Representatives, however, were all white;
:. so that every white man living in a slave
State had three-ffths of a vote more than any
| citizen in a free State. When slavery was
abolished these three-ffths existed no longer;
and the entire black population, still not
| voting, was added to that, according to which
representation was to be apportioned. The
white population was thus allowed to repre-
sent not only itself, but the four millions of
blacks; thus really gaining by the crime of
from Rebellion, had what amounted
| to double the vote OF loyal man
at the North. The second section
of the amendment simply provides that repre-
sentaton shall be equalized; that only those
who vote shall be represented, and leaves it
for each State to say who shall vote. 1t Sc
| cures that the vote of a man in the Rebel
States shall be worth no more than the vote
of citizen in one of the loyal States. Not a
very harsh punishment, that, to intlict on
those who had carried on the bloodiest Rebel
lion in history-that they should have no
more rights than their victors in the Gov
ernment which they had striven to overturn.
Yet this is what the Seymour Democracy
and their Rebel allies fight hardest against.
They cannot consent to place the Rebels on
political level with the loyal men of the
North.
The Rebels claim, and the Seymour Demo-
Gratis claim, that they want a white mans
government; they, who want to base govern
ment on black representation. The second
section of the Fourteenth Amendment pro.
vides the nearest approach to white mans
government that this country has ever seen.
1t provides that black men who do not vote
shall not be represented. The Rebels and their
Northern allies claim that the blacks shall be
represented, but that Rebels shall represent
them, and, more than that, vote for them
That is the kind of white mans government
the Democracy is clamoring for-one in which
by virtue of a nOn-voting population, the
whites Of the South shall have twice the po
litical power of the whites of the North. Tina
is what Frank Blair calls the ''real and only
this power to traitors-to Wade Hampton, anC
Forrest, and their allies {?
The third sect ion secures the punishment O
the officials who violated their oaths to thi!
Government it Furnishes treason in the only
legal way now possible. For when whole
community shares with its leaders in crime, il
is idle to talk of Furnishing those leaders by
trial by jury. The jury in such population
share the guilt of those whom they try, anC
the experience Of the last three and a hal
years has shown that no jury can be found il
any Southern State to convict man of treason
on account of acts done in the late Rebellion
The jury violate their oaths as readily as tn,
leaders whom they are to try. But this sec
tion makes the punishment of treason part O
the fundamental law of the land, and vindi
Gates the offended majesty of the Government
by inserting in its very Constitution the ina
bllity of the greatest criminals to hold ofict
under that Government. Again, slight pun
ishment, where other nations would hav,
taken life and property. But these men inso
lently maintain that they must not be ex
cluded from a prominent share in the YER,
Government against which they rebelled
: They will not only not be governed by us
who subdued them but they must govern us
and accomplish in peace what they failed to d
, in war.
, The fourth section secures the payment G
the nationaldebt and of the nationaLobligation
to wounded soldiers, as well as to the familie
OF those who laid down their lives for our sal
| walton; and it forever provides against tn
assumption by the nation OF any debt in
> CURED in the attempt to destroy its own OK
, istence, This, too, forsooth, is too harsh
penalty to impose on beaten Rebels; they can
not endure that the country they detest shoul