The Cecil Whig. [volume] (Elkton, Md.) 1841-current, 1868-02-08
SENATOR MORTON.


ment, the fourteenth article, was brought
forward as basis OF settlement and recon,
struction and there was atacit understand
ing, though it was not embraced in any law
or resolution, that if the Southern people
should ratily and agree to that amendment,
then their State governments would be ac-
cepted. But that amendment was rejected,
contemptuously rejected. The Southern
people, counseled and inspired by the De-
mocracy of the North, rejected that amend.
ment. They were told that they were not
bound to submit to any conditions whatever
that they had forfeited no rights by rebellion.
Why, sir, what did we propose by this
amendment? By the first section We de-
clared that all men born upon our soil were
citizens Of the United States-a thing that
had long been recognized by every depart.
ment of this Government until the bred
Scott decision was made in 1857. The sec.
ond section provided that where a class or
race Of men were excluded from the right OF
suffrage they should not be counted in the
basis Of representation-an obvious justice
that no reasonable man for moment could
deny; that if four million people down
South were to have no suffrage, the men
living in their midst and surrounding them,
and depriving them Of all political rights,
should not have members of Congress on
their account. say the justice Of the sec.
and clause has never been successfully i'm
pugued by any argument care not how
Ingenious it may be. What was the third
clause? 1t was that the leaders ofthe South
those men who had once taken an official oath
to support the Constitution of the United
States, and had afterward committed perjury
by going into the rebellion, should be made
ineligible to any oiTiceunder the Government
Of the United States or Of a State. 1t was
very small disfranchisemcnt. 1t was in.
tended to withhold power from those lead
crs by whose fundamentally we bad lost
nearly half million lives and untold treas
ere The Justice of that disfranchsomcnt
could not be disproved. And what was the
fourth clause of the amendment? That this
Government should never assume and pay
never pay the rebels for their slaves. This
was bitterly opposed in the North as we'll rs
in the South. How could any man oppose
that amendment unless he was in favor Of
this Government assuming portion or all
Of the rebel debt, and in favor Of paying the
rebels for their slaves? When the Demo
cratic party North and South opposed that
most important, and, perhaps, hereafter to
be regarded as vital amendment they were
committing themselves in principle, as they
had been before by declarations to the doe
trine that this Government was bound to
pay for the slaves, and that it was Just and
right that we should assume and pay the
rebel debt
This amendment, as have before said
was rejected, and when Congress assembled
in December, 1866, they were confront ed
by the fact that every proposition of com
promise had been rejected; every halfway
measure had been spurned by the rebels
tnemselyen, and they had nothing left to do
but to begin the work of reconstruction
themselves; and in February, 1867, Con
gress for the first time entered upon the
execution of the guarantee provided for in
the Constitution by the passage of the first
reconstruction law. A supplementary bill
was found necessary in March, another one
in July, and | believe another is found
necessary at this time; but the power is
with Congress. Whatever it shall deem
necessary, whether it be in the way of color
ed suffrage, whether it be in the way OF
military power-whatever Congress shall
deem necessary in the execution of this
guarantee is conclusive upon the courts,
upon every State, and upon the people Of
THE nation.
Sir, when Congress entered upon this
work 1t had become apparent to all men
that loyal republican State governments
could not be erected and maintained upon
the basis of the white population. We bad
tried them. Congress had attempted the
work Of reconstruction through the consli
tutional amendment by leaving the suffrage
with the white men, and by leaving with the
white people Of the South the question as to
when the coored people should exercise
the right of suffrage, if ever; but when it
was found that those white men were as re
bellious as ever that they hated this Gov
eminent more bitterly than ever; when it
was found that they prosecuted the loyal
men, both white and black in their midst ;
when it was found that Northern men who
bad gone down there were driven out by
social tyranny, by a thousand annoyances,
by the insecurity Of life and property-then
it became apparent to all men ofintelhgence
that reconstruction could not take place
upon the basis of the white population, and
something else must be done.
Now, sir, what was there left TO do?-
Either we must hold these people continual
ly by military power, or we must use such
machinery upon such new basis as would
enable loyal republican State governments
to be raised up; and in the last resort, and
will say Congress waited long, the nation
waited long, experience had to come to the
rescue Of reason before the thing was done
in the last resort, and as the last thing to
be done, Congress determined to dig through
all the rebbish-dg through the soil and the
shifting sands, and go down to the eternal
rock and there, upon the basis of the ever.