Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1868-08-31
Letter nom Hon. Amos Kendall.

OF the lOtn INST, as CHAIRMAN OF com :
mittee OF the jackson Democratic Asso.
citation, inviting me to attend at the dedi-
cation Of their hall on the evening oi
Thursday next, and expressing the beliei
that my association with Gen. Jackson
will enable me ito add to the interest ol
the occasion"
| In reply, have the honor to thank you
and your committee for remembering me
ia my seclusion, and to inform you that
my duties elsewhere on that evening, and
my disinelinatioD, at the age of seventy
nine years, to mingle in political excite
ments, forbid an acceptance of your kind
invitation. But, recognizing the duty Of
every living man to do what he can te
serve his country in times Of danger,
have no hesitation in communicating to
you and your association the views en-
tertain upon the issue involved in the
election this year.
| OF the men who are candidates have
nothing to say. It seems to me the duty
of every true patriot in this momentous
crisis to think only of the great princi-
Piles and results involved, and, overlook
ing all that is merely personal in the
candidates, consider them merely as in :
struments in maintaining those princi-
pies and effecting those results. A vast
majority of our Northern people went
into the late war for the preservation of
the Union. The war was successful, and
the Union was preserved. The rebels
everywhere laid down their arms, and
peace was restored throughout the land.
All that was needed to make that peace
perpetual was State officers in all the
seeding States sworn to support the
Constitution of the United States.
| True every man who had borne arms
against the United States, and every one
who had given them aid and comfort, had,
| under the Constitution and existing laws,
incurred the penalties Of death and con-
| fiscation. From these penalties they
could be relieved only by the constitu-
tional pardoning power, or by trial and
acquittal in the courts. The su', ,ject was
exclusively executive and judicial, and
altogether beyond the rightful jurisdic
ton of the legislative power. Now, who
proclamations of the President been al
lowed to have their legal effect, and the
Southern States been permitted to reor-
ganize themselves under officers sworn
to support the Constitution of the United
States, we should long ago have had
peace and comparative prosperity
throughout our borders Why is it so ?
1t is attributable entirely to the usurpa
tions of Congress. That body began by
adopting the absurdity that the success
full war for the preservation of the Union
had in fact destroyed the Union; that in
compelling the seeding States to remain
in the Union our armies had in fact
thrust them out; and that, however anx-
ious the Southern people might be to
stay in or get in, they could not do so
without asserting to spch conditions as
Congress might prescribe. If the sue
cess of the war put the Southern States
out of the Union, would its failure have
kept them in2 On this absurdity was
based the entire reconstruction legisla.
ton of Congress. They assumed that
the seeding States, instead of being
portions Of our great Republic, were al
together foreign, and that their people,
instead Of being repentant rebels, we're
conquered enemies. Upon these pre-
texts they took them out of the constitu-
tioHal supervision of the executive and
judicial departments of the Government,
and subjected them to the unlimited
power Of Congress, irrespective of the
Constitution. Instead of leaving them
to be pardoned under the laws in exis.
tence when their crime was committed,
they passed er post tdcto laws, imposing
upon them new and unheard of disablli-
ties, from which their victims could, ac-
cording to their theory and practice, be
relieved only by the usurping and abso-
lutte power which had imposed them; and
when the President and judiciary indi-
Gated disposition to exercise their con
stitutional rights they sought to deprive
them Of their rightful powers by legisia
tion, and by threats Of punishment by
impeachment Thus, practically, has
Congress subverted the Constitution, and
on this subject, taken into their hands all
the powers of ernment-legislative
executive aud judicial. If their theory
were true, instead of being false, as it is,
where did they get the power to legislate
over the seeding States-to treat them
as outlaws, and put them out of the pale
of civilized and Republican institutions
Not, surely, in the Constitution of the
Ouitcu Ctsttb huu, IL uot tuctcs Wuhi
rightful power had they, beyond that of
any other body of usurpers not bearing
the title of members of Congress, to legis-
late over those people at ALI The party
which has produced all this wrong. usur-
patton, and oppression calls itself Repub-
liesn. Before, and during the war, its
leaders maintained that the Southern
States had not Republican governments,
because the negroes had no right to vote
The same men have joined in imposing
governments upon those States in which
large numbers of white men have no
right to vote; and yet these governments
are Republican enough for them. And
thess Republican governments by the
scheme lately concocted in Washington,
aud sent out to be executed by their
tools in the South, for taking even from |
these new-Aedged voters the right to vote |
for Presidential electors right long ex |
ercised by the people Of every State in
the Union except South Carolina, the
most aristocratic in the Confederacy. |
And this plan has been actually adopted
in Florida, and so far defeated in Ala
bama BY the veto of a Southern-born
Governor, who strangely imagines that
modern republicanism means something
more than design to retain control OF
the Government, even at the expense Of
every truly republican principle and
institution. Look az the rest Of the new
States which Congress has admitted into
the Union. without the population Of
second-raie city, each having as many
Senators IS old States with their swarm
ing millions Is il republican that twenty
thousand voters iu the Western plains
aud mountains should have the same