The Portland daily press., 1868-07-31

The Reconstruction acts are "of no VALIDITY
wbatever"-they are Revolutionary. uncon
stitutiona1 and void" So say President John
son and Francis p. Blair, and so says Wade
Hampton in the Democratic platform.
Now, Messrs. Democrats you may just as
properly request the American people tore
peal the ten Commandments or the doctrines
OF the Sermon ON the Mount, as to ask them
10 give up the reconstruction acts, for those
acts are in their nature irrepealdble. They are
righteous. They are mere corollarieS of the
Christian philosophy. They were framed in
vindictive or revenegful spirit, but they merely
embody the desire of the people that all men
shall be free and shall enjoy the inalienable
rights enumerated in the Declaration OF Inde-
pendence. No rebel advocate of caste and up
holder of class distinctions is made by those
acts to suffer mild punishment for his trea-
son who may not save himself from every pen
atty denounced against him, not for his past
but for his prospective crimes, by simply con-
cedng the rights of others. Indeed, while the
cowardly secessionists are organizing Ku-Klux
Klans to murder unoffending negroes, killing
the freedmen at the average rate of two hun
dred year in Texas alone, depriving them of
employment as a punishment for voting the
Radical ticket, and at the same time crying to
Northern Democrats for help against "negro
domination" the negroes and "carpet-baggers"
of the Alabama and Georgia legislatures are
passing resolutions in favor of removing the
political disabilities of their sworn foes.
Let us see what the overthrow of the recon-
struction act means. 1t means the resembling
of the 14th constitutional amendment. If the
reconstruction acts are void, the ratification of
the amendment by State governments estab-
lished by virtue of those acts cannot be of any
validity. 1t follows that the Southern white
rebels, instead of being represented in Con-
gress, as formerly, on the basis of their own
numbers added to the Mree.ffths of the negro
popula ion, will add to their own number the
aohole four millions of loyal blacks, who will
have no ballots, and be represented in Con-
gress on that bass Thus the vote of rebel
in South Carolina will count for more than
twice as much as the vote of citizen of Maine,
while the majority of the loyal men of the for
mer State are disfranchised!
This is what Andrew johnson, Frank Blair
Wade Hampton, the National Democratic
platform and the Maine Democrats who ac-
cept it, mean when they speak of the invalidi-
ty of the reconstruction acts There is no pos
sible way of evading this conclusion, if we take
the Democratic premises as correct.
Great as this inequality would be. the wrong
becomes merely incidental when compared
with that done to the negro by the abandon
ment of the Congressional plan of reconstruc-
ton. The first thing the secessionists did I'M
der the State governments created by John
son, was to pass vagrant laws and establish APP
prentice systems that remanded negroes to vir-
tual slavery. What would they do now if per-
mitted to follow the dictates of the revengeful
feelings that have been iDfamed by Johnson's
counsels and by the sympathy of Northern
Copperheadism? The purpose to deprive the
blacks of the ballot is openly and even violent
ly proclaimed everywhere. Such an act would
not only be in contravention of CONSTITUTIONAL
but of natural law. 1t would be an atrocity
hitherto unheard of, that men once.recognized
as belonging to the body polite should lose the
right to vote by reason of anything but crime
So outrageous purpose can never be consum-
mated in America except through blood!