The weekly standard., 1870-08-17
Address of the Republican Congress
siOnaI Committee.


The Executive and Legislative Departments
of the National Government and two-thirds
of the State Governments have been COM
mitted to your keeping. Such power carries
with it grave responsibilities. The people,
as is their right, will hold you to strict ac-
countabiity for the exercise of this great trust.
Elections are soon to he held for the Ma
tional House OF Representatives These
elections will determine the political com
plexion of the popular branch of Congress.
They will, too, determine the political char
acter OF several State Governments. And
these results will be accepted as the verdict
of the people upon the ideas, principles and
policies of the Republican party, and upon
the measures and character of the National
Administration. To these responsibilities,
and to the gravity of these issues, ycur
| thoughtful consideration is invoked.
In the present juncture it behooves the
Republican party not to forget its origin,
nor its history. Amid the difficulties that
beset it. and the responsibilities and labor,
which the needs of the country in the new
| and untr.ed condition of affairs imposes, 1t
should remember that it was born OF the
nations necessities, and thus far it has
grandly met the exigencies for which 1t was
formed. Having passed triumphantly
through three great cras of its history, it is
now summoned to enter upon its fourth.
Gathering, therefore, inspiration from past
successes, it should grapple hopefully and
with unshrinking confidence with the duties
of the present and near future.
Recurring to their origin, Republicans
will remember, when the land was the thea
ter of stern and irrcpressible conflict be
tween the demons of Slavery and caste and
the ssvsn vsnEjt af liberty and sapalty % Ehsn the
full Organizations IN its grasp and ruled the
nation with imperial sway, that the founders
of the party, instructed by passing events,
with convictions decpened and zeal quick
ened by the teachings of history and OF holy
writ and inspired by the deathless words OF
the patriots, statesmen, and heroes of our
earlier time, rose to the exigencies of the
hour, opposed the naughty ambitions, the
maddening passions, the cruel prejudices,
and the disorganizing theories of the domi-
mating majority, and, although long over
borne by numbers, still struggled on amid
jeers, insults, mobs, blows, and assassina-
tions, till under the lead of Abraham Lin
coin they achieved success and grasped the
scepter OF political power,
Entering upon its second era, appalling
responsibilities at once arose. The slave
masters, in the pride and arrogance of power,
instantly plunged the nation into the fire
and blood of civil war. But the Republi-
can party rose with the crisis. 1t raised
money in unstinted measure, organized vast
armies, created powerful navies, fought
bloody battles, crushed the most gigantic
: rebellion of all recorded history, and saved
nations life. 1t was then, amid the clash
of arms, that the Republican party saw that
Slavery was the relentless and unappeasable
foe of the country, was the inspiration, the
heart and soul of that civil war, and that its
bellion, the unity of the Republic, and the
. development of free institutions. Against
cowardly fears, selfish instincts, and unrea-
soning passions and prejudices, it pro.
nounced the doom of that hideous and hor-
rid system of human bondage, though ii
was upheld by the aggregated interests OF
three thousand millions of dollars, hcdgcd
about by the accumulated passions and
prejudices, prides and ambitions of seven
generations, and intrenched within the so
cial, political and ecclesiastical organiza
tions and affiliations of life BY series O.
executive and legislative acts it broke th'
chains and lifted from the deptli of chattel
hood up to the SUBMITS of ma Aood tou
and half millions ofhapless bojAmcn. ant
stood before the nations with tiAir rive,
| fetters in one hand and their title deeds t,
freedom in the other
The war ended, the Rebellion subdued
the bondmcn emancipated, the Republican
party entered upon the third era of its event
full history. Though conquered by arms th'
Rebels did not accept the just, humane, ant
generous ideas of the victors, nor did the,
return to their proper allegiance and loyalt.
to the Government, but still bemoaning th
"lost cause" they remained unsubdued il
will and unrepentant in spirit and purpose
Though made free the bondmen were home
less, without property, without employment
subject to the cruel laws against free peopl
of color which had always disgraced South
ern legislation, and in the midst of a peopl
exasperated by defeat and maddened b,
their loss of power still longer to hold anC
oppress. Property was swept away, in
dustry disorganized, society disintegrated
and States were without lawful governments
Upon the Republican party devolved tn
task of reconstruction. To its intrinsic diff
fculties were added the intense hostility o
the ex-Rebeis, the lingering prcjudices Ions
engendered by the slave system, the timit
councils of Conservatism, and the apostac,
of the Executive. Great interests and pow
erful combinations sought to so reconstruc
the South as to place the power in the hand
of the late slaveholding class, and leave th'
helpless freedmen in the alject condition O
| a1l tor
there been imposed upon any body of mer
work of greater magnitude or difficulty
The Republicans might have shrunk from
and avoided it. They were sorely tempted
to do SO. But they resisted the temptation
of official power and patronage, the threats
of Executive dictation, and all other adverse
influences, and with sublime fidelity and
courage addressed themselves to the her
culean task
| To aid IN reorganizing disortlered indus
tries, caring for, protecting, and instructing
the emancipated bondmen in the new duties
of their changed condition, the Republicans
established the Freedmen's Bureau, which
by the wise expenditure of q few miilious oi
dollars. did an incalculablc work for order
peace, and the rehabilitation of Southern
society," To reconstruct rebellious States on
the solid basis of equal rights. they gave
suffrage to the freedmen in the reconstruc.
ton measures. To secure citizenship and
civil rights to wronged and hated race
they proposed and adopted the Fourteenth
Amendment, and enacted the bill of Civil
Rights To establish by irreversible guar
antees equal political rights and privileges