The weekly clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1863-1882, 1869-05-20
Letter from, Judge Field.

| ton with the Republican party III you
| mean to say | have separated from the mem,
| bers of the late State Convention who haC
| then but recently settled in Mississippi, ano
| banded together to rule the Convention and
state, you are mistaken, as by reference to
! the proceedings of that body, and as every
/ member Will testify, l never had any con-
nection with them. only so far as they man.
ifeSted liberal policy, by just and gener-
| GUS treatment of political opponents, mol
did participate in their caucuses or other
meetings to further selfish purposes, mol
unite with them to inf1ict pains and penal
ties on the members of what they called
the rebel party; and therefore, had no I'M
proper connection TO sever.
If you intended to convey the idea that
have severed my connection with the Ma
tional Republican party, you are likewise
mistaken, as L have more commence IN IL
than ever, seeing that the Presidant and a
majority supposed to represent its views,
have given assurance that it viii not here
after be influenced by those persons in Con-
greSs and elsewhere who have hitherto used
their influence to widen the breach that eN-
listed between portion of our people and
their fellow-citiZenS ofthe North and West ;
but on the contrary, are prepared TO credit
the statements ofthose who were authorized
by large portion of the people to represent
their views and feelings as being IN unison
with the President and Congress in carTyin g
out the reconstruction acts in good faith.
You truly say, am in accord with those
moderate men who have not heretofore been
Republican. This clearly implies that l am
now agreed with all moderate Republicans,
as ever have been, and am now, with all
others regardless of their political antece-
dents who desire to cooperate in removing
the causes and impediments that have here
tofore INSTRUCTED that unity of action so
necessary in the work of liberal reconstruc-
ton which it is likely win soon De secured.
The signs of the times are prophetic OF
coming good. as they indicate that as teach
able men we have profited by experience
and determined to unite all our powers. I'M
der the guidance of moderate councils, TO
secure, if possible. a return to the mutual
confidence and prosperity that has been sus-
pended and eEgulphed by the whirlpool of
passion with which civil war overwhelmed
US. and to which all mankind in every age
and country have been subject when great
and sudden changes, religious or political,
have been precipitated upon them without
due preparation; whether such changes are
i'll their nature good or evil; whether the
authority which forces their acceptance be
actuated by good or bad intentions, they
have all alike proved disastrous.
AS q people we are now suffering the pain
full consequences of one of those sudden
transformations of society resulting from a
change of opinion on the subject of domes-
tic slavery, considered in its moral, religious
and political aspects and relation, by the
majority of the people of the United States
the policy of whose government authorized,
if it did not encourage until lS0S the impor-
tation of Africans for the purpose of ensla-
wing them, whether they had been free or
otherwise in their native country, whereby
it appears they believed up to that time it
was consistent with the rights of humanity
and compatible with moral, religious, and
republican government.
1t is not that thesopinion of mankind has
undergone change relative to the nature
of the relation OF master and slave in the
abstract; but that under the altered and i'm
proved condition OF the race throughout the
civilized world, it is no longer thought to
be a necessary means of human improve
ment, and as the power and authority of the
superior in every relation of life is OF right,
founded upon the sole condition of its ne
cessity as a means of benettting the parties
so related, and the community of which they
NAV be members; by enforcing the obliga-
ton implicitly incurred by every one hold
ing and exercising mastery over others, in
Guiding the legitimdtely constituted author
tiles i'll civil government in elevating their
interiors 10 the extent, OF their mutual ca
pabilities limited only by want of lawful
means to affect it-all of which morality,
religion, and philosophy demand of a people
whose object it is to conform themselves to
the laws of God and nature by which alone,
they can perfect themselves individually
and colectively-the end for which they
were created, and civil government institu-
ted.
The general extension of knowledge du-
ring the present century has enabled all civ
iiiZed people to discover that, not only much
the largest portion of the ills to which man
kind have been and are subject arises from
the possession of too much power by that
portion of the community who'd have hith-
erto given municipal law to the rest, and
are waking up to their responsibilities and
limiting by constitutional enactment, the
number and power of their governmental
agencies so as the better TO secure the ends
for which any civil or political superiority
of one person over another can be lawfully
permitted or instituted, and as domestic sla-
very has been almost universally condemned
not only as an useless adjunct to civil gov
eminent, in promoting the well being of in
dividuals and communities, but on the con-
trary a serious obstacle to both, as the civil
and political degradation which it inflicts or
CONTINUES where previously eStabliShed)
are both judged and felt by the public mind
and heart. to be inconsistent with that nat
ural equality of human right which should
never be permitted to be invaded, unless ne
cessary to do a greater evil, or to secure
some essential good such as ignorance, vice,
death on one hand: or virtue, knowledge, en-
ergy on the other.
1t is to such general world wide causes
that many of the greatest political. and 9TH
er revolutions must be attributed, and not
any peculiar perverseness or idiesyncracy
of the people who, in any particular age or
country, may be called to endure the pains
uphold and sustain by such means what
they believe to be their rights; and there
fore the great and destructive one through
which we have been recently called to pass
cannot be charged to sectional or party pref
udice; or any other special cause or influ-
ence; but as having been produced by one
of those eruptionS in society necessarily in
cident to sudden transition or change of its
elements from one state or condition to
another wholly dissimilar.
1l,A ha taIf TO .,
any heat or animosity between the parties
who have been antagonistic in the strife; as
they were brought into collision by the
conflict going on throughout the world be-
tween the party of progress. against that of
conservative inaction, so far as the extern
sion of of liberty and equality is con-
cerned. The latter, composed chiefly of in
dividuals who have heretofore been subject
TO pecunlary, caste, and other social infiu-
ences tending to conteract those general
motives called the spirit of the age, are only
little slower than such as have been, for
generations, relieved of these impediments,
but will soon be up with all true RepublI-
cans 10 promote every rational improve
ment> and interpoSe their influence to arrest
the rash spirit of political innovation that
would commit the present and future inter-
est of great and growing nation to the
control and government of individuals pos
sessing none ofthe moral, religious, pecuni-
airy, educational, or other qualifications es-
SentlaI TO future progress in christian civil
! ization. But as the former has overcome
the latter, both should strike hands, as is
customary with honorable men after they
have exhausted their skill and courage, and
magnanimously and eourteously render
each other that respect they both deserve
for putting their all in peril for what they
believed the right. 1a
Now, as the government requires that civ
| il and political rights shall be constitution
ally secured to every citizen of the State as
a condition Of reconstruction, and in every
other thus far restored, it has been complied
with, and it is hoped that the few who are
making lmpotent resistance to the moderate
| councils of the large majority of their friends
will no longer give their enemies, if they
have any. plausible grounds to misconstrue
their honest scruples into seditious opposi-
ton 70 the constituted authorities OF the
government and weaken the power of theiT