The weekly North-Carolina standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 186?-1869, 1868-01-15

taxation HE other property; but can see
no advantage in having the Government of
the United States pay taxes to the several
States, which have first to be collected from
the people.
The principal financial scheme of the
Democratic party is. that the Government
and the treasury shall be turned over in the
hands OF the men who made the rebellion.
and caused the debt to be contracted and
TINS, suppose, upon the principle that the
hair OF the dog is good far the bite" but
tins l am sure is the last remedy the people
intend to try. -
But to return to the irrepressibIe conflict
OF ideas, to which alluded in the beginning,
the palpable and direct issue will be pre-
sented IN the attempt to restore the rebels un-
conditionally to the full enjoyment of politi-
cal rights; to place in their hands exclusive
ly the governments of the rebel States; to
give them the control absolutely of the LOYAL
men, black and white, living in those States;
and the unqualified admission of their Sena.
tors and Representatives into Congress. The
Democratic party are not willing that polti-
cal power III the rebel States shall be divided
between the loyal and the disloyal, but they
demand that 1t shall be placed exclusively
In the hands of the disloyal, to whose ten
der mercies the true and faithful people shall
be consigned without redress or appeal. To
deceive the people, they are uttering false cries.
andtlll the land with clamor because of the al
lodged oppression practiced upon the people
of the South Who are those oppressed peo-
pie in the South 2 They are those who, less
than three years ago, were in arms against
w hay
half a million loyal lives, and five thousand
millions of dollars; twenty five hundred of
which still remain to rs as legacy, and who
have filled the land with mourning, and un-
told suffering and sorrow And now we are
charged with being oppressors and tyrants
because they have not been admitted to full
political rights; because they have not been
welcomed into Congress. and because they
are not allowed to butcher and drive into
exile the Union men in their midst 1t is
cOntended that these rebels in the act of be-
ing conquered were RENTED to all civil and
political privileges; that the moment their
arms were wrested from their hands upon
the battle field they had right to run back
to seats in Congress, and take part in the
adjustment OF all questions growing out of
their rebellion, and TO take charge of their
several State governments the same as if
there had been no war. All these pretensions
proceed upon theprincipe that the rebellion
was right; for if it be admitted that the re-
bellion was wrong, they are destitute of all
sense whatever. 1t is only by ignoring the
fact OF the rebellion or by treating it as right
full, that any man without shamefacedness can
stand up and say these things. If it be ac-
knowledged that the rebellion was a crime.
then the demand that the criminal shall with
out delay, punishment, condition, or security,
be restored to political power, and put on
level with loyal men, is to put vice and virtue
upon an equality, and make nonsense of no.
tions commonly received that, there is an
essential difference between the good and
bad actions of mankind SD you see that
these questions of reconstruction all turn
upon the original question as to the right
fulness of the rebellion. In the Congression-
al plan of reconstruction Congress has gone
to the extreme of mercy and Cancellation, by
proposing to divide the power in the rebel
States between the loyal and the disoyal. so
that each shall have protection against the
other. But small number of men, not ex.
ceeding forty-hve thousand, have been dis
frarchised and they not because they were
in the rebel army, but because they had once
sworn to support the Constitution of the
United States, and afterward committed per-
jury by going into the rebellion The Presi
dents decree of disfranchisement in his plan
OF reconstruction was far more sweeping, for
it included fourteen classes of persons, mum
berlng not less that two hundred and tifty
thousand men, who were excluded from the
polls in the election of delegates. The pres
ent State governments, which it is said Con-
gress intends to overthrow, and which were
formed under the Presidents plan, have no
right to be regarded as legal governments
whatever. They were formed by conventions
of delegates elected in 1865 by not more than
one third of the white men who had A right
to vote under the Presidents proclamation.
These delegates represented only a small mi
nority of the white population, and the con-
stitutlons they formed were never ratified or
accepted by the people, but were put in op-
Grafton by the Presidents authority, and are
in that condition to-day. They were never
submitted to Congress, never received its ap-
proval; but on the contrary, in the recon-
structlon acts were pronounced illegal and
unauthorized. In these constitutions there
are clauses prohibiting slavery and the paw
ment OF their several war debts, but when
they are restored to their representation in
Congress, and thus made secure in the enioy-
ment of political power, they will throw them
off as impositions which they have only toll
Grated for time. and make new ones. LEAVING
out the obnoxious clauses on the sub;cct IF
slavery and their war debts. CONGRESS- in
comforting suffrage upon the colored men of
the South, has been governed not only bv
high principles OF equity and justice, but
by an overriding necessity. A bitter and
bloody experience under the Presidents
plan of reconstruction had demonstrated
that the rebels were unrepentant and unre.
lenting, and that loyal State governments
could not be erected on the basis of the white
population, and that a new loyal voting pom
ulation must be raised up by enfrancbising
the colored men. So that whatever views
the people at the North may have had upon
the proprety of admitting men. who were 90
recently slaves to the immediate exercise of
the elective franchise, they had no choice
or discretion upon the subject left. but were
driven to it by the conduct of the rebels and
their Northern allies. ,'''>'
Wrapped up in this issue and in the sue
cess of the Democratic party are other issues
which VIII be inevitable sequences. The
hrst OF which shall mention is the payment
for the emancipated slaves. This Question
will have to be decided in 1858 as emnh.t;-
cally rs if written out in the Democr.t;c
platform. The State of MARYLAND. in her
new constitution, just adopted, has provitse,I
for it in the following terms:
Sec. 81. The General Assembly sb.ru
pass no law providing for payment bv thSs
State for slaves emancipated from servitnde.
IN snls state; but they shall adopt such