The Montana post. [volume] (Virginia City, Montana Territory [i.e. Mont.]) 1864-1869, 1868-06-12
ssCANNOTKEEP UP.,

the six hundred word sentence in the
English military statutes, appeared in
the Gazette yesterday. Its object ap-
pears to be to prove that the Democracy
still adhere to the States Rights doc
trine, and the assumption that there is
no inherent power in the Union to pre-
serve itself, and that the war for the
Union was unconstitutional. Still it de-
clares we "misstated the record of
Pendleton" in putting him on that side.
With that record you must accept him
or take him as a renegade from the
Radicals for you win still persist in de-
nominating the victory over rebellion,
"one of our accomplished crimes" You
cannot have changed your views. We
know Geo. H. Pendelton was copper
head over whose reasonable sins his
old father wept tears of shame when he
read his speeches made at the outset of
the war, and you, even ARE ashamed of it
now. To disloyalty he now adds dis
honesty, and seven years hence you will
declare his proposition that the gov
ernment shall violate its faith and honor,
a misstatement. "You remember we
legislated the Southern States out of the
Union" You remember nothing of the
kind. The acts of secession and armed
hostility to the Federal government di-
vested the inhabitants of those States
who Joined the rebellion. of all rights of
citizenship under the government they
foreswore. Their civil governments un-
der the United States were utterly
destroyed and Confederate gov
ernments reared upon their ruins.
So complete was the destruction of all
laws recognized by the United States
that Chief Justice Chase, to whom De-
mocracy now pins its faith, charged
Richmond jury, as will be seen by the
kilograms, that all drafts and obligations
drawn during the rebellion in the rebel
lious States and under the government,
are illegal and void. The defeat of re-
bellion made rebels criminals in the eyes
of the law. The States were not out
territorially; but was not federal author
ity dead within them for four years? If
rebellion had succeeded, would it ever
have been revived? Is there any au-
thority in the land except Congress to
grant enabling acts for the organization
of State governments where none exist?
| This is what Congress is doing in the
late rebellious States at which you
| growl and whine. You would rather
see them dead after having aided to de-
stroy them. The 14th Constitutional
Amendment loas applicable to all. No
/ Constitutional amendment could be
adopted which was not. 1t Iods ratified
by the New England States and rejected
by the South at Andrew Johnson's sug
gestion. 1t provided for citizenship, not
" suffrage" as you declare. 1t is true,
that in your view of the case, the rebel
element Jared worse after rejecting it,
even as they did after rejecting in dis
dain all overtures for peace and union
in 1861. You must remember that it
was johnson who DISTINGUISHED three
hundred thousand of your fellow white
Democrats in the South, and that
Congress lifted the restrictions from
100000 of them before it submitted
its measures to popular vote;
You say the offenses of the Union party
come so thick and fast that you can
scarce keep up with them. Truly said.
You tried it awhile on the principle of
the bull and the engine. You were
tumbled in the ditch with a broken
crown at Appomattox, and ever since
are seen your counterparts in the noisy
spaniels that rush up in furious haste
from well gnawed bones to yelp their
compliments at swift passing trains. All
down the annals of time, since the water
proof conservative refused to step into
the ark, this same element has been
dragging along at the heels of progress
in art, science and politics. When
mildly designated it is called 'old fogy-
ism," and is that peculiarly happy ele-
ment of society that carries blue ging-
ham umbrellas and is always signing
for "the good old times" 1t carries it's
Il corn to mill with a stone in one end of
the bag, smokes corn cob pipes, rolls up
its eyes in horror at anything new,
wears wooden shoes and don't adver-
tise. Ii is that portion of humanity al.
ways behind time and always getting
itself in Just such grief as caught that
old fogy, Pharaoh, by not keeping up
with Moses. There will be another Red
Sea disaster to fogydom next autumn.