Middletown transcript., 1868-08-29


KENDALL GREEN, August 20, 1868.
Alerander Rmher1ord, Esq. Choi,nsan,
DEAR SIR: I duly received your letter
Of the 10Th instant, 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 of
Thursday next, and expressing the belief
that my association with General Jackson
will enable me &c to add to the interest of
the OCCASION"
In reply, [ have the honor to thank
you and your committee for remembering
me in my seclusion, and to inform you
that my duties elsewhere on that evening,
and my diSinelination, at the age of sew
enty-nine years, to mingle in political ex-
elements, forbid an acceptance of your
kind invitation. But recognizing the duty
of every living man to do what he can to
serve his country in times of danger,
have no hesitation III communicating to
you and your association the views en-
tertain upon the issue involved in the
elections of this year.
OF the men who are candidates I have
nothing to say. 1t seems to me the duty
of every true patriot in this momentous
crisis to think only of the great principles
and results involved, and overlooking all
that is merely personal in the candidates,
consider them merely as instruments in
maintaining those principles and affecting
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 pre-
served. The rebels everywhere laid down
their arms, and peace Was restored through
out the land. All that was needed to
make that peace perpetual was State Off
GERS 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 constitutional
pardoning power, or by trial and acquittal
in the courts. The subject was exclu-
siyely executive and judicial and alto
gether beyond the rightful jurisdiction of
the legislative power. Now, who does
not know that had the amnesty proelama-
tions of the President been allowed to have
their legal effect, and the Southern States
been permitted to reorganize themselves
under officers sworn to support the Con-
stitution of the United States, we should
long ago have had peace and comparative
prosperity throughout our borders Why
is it not SO =? 1t is attributable entirely to
the -usurpations of Congress That BODY
began by adopting the absurdity that the
successful 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
anxious the Southern people might be to
stay in or get in, they could not do so
without asserting to such conditions as
Congress might prescribe. IF the success
of the war put the Southern States out of
the Union, would its failure have kept
them in >On this absurdity was. based
the entire reconstruction legislation of
Congress. They assumed that the sece-
ding States, instead of being portions of
our great Republic, were altogether for
eign, and that their people, instead of be-
ing repentant rebels, were conquered enc
mics. Upon these pretexts they took
them out of the Constitutional supervision
of the executive and judicial departments
of the Government, and subjected them
to the unlimited power of Congress, IL
respective of the Constitution. Instead
of leaving them to be pardoned under the
laws in existence when their crime was
committed, they passed en post .facto laws
imposing upon them new and unheard-of
disabilities, from which their victims could.
according to their theory and practice, be