Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1870-01-20

relation to the States after reconstruction.
Congress has not fulfilled all the obiga-
lions it owes to the States to be reconstruc-
ted, or exhausted all the power which it
has in the matter, when it has admittedthem
to full participation in the national councils,
butt is bound to see that they holdtothe vital
principles of a republican form of govern
ment. The power to protect republican
institutions established in the insurrection-
airy States is as full as the power to es-
tablish them The republicans who favor
the admission Of Virginia by the Bingham
bill have this understanding of the question.
The following remarks of Senator Morton
upon the subject of putting conditions into
the bill intended to make Virginia keep
her faith are worthy of careful reading.
Sir, we are standing in the presence almost
of rebellion. 1t has passed away, but it has
left its consequences and its memories behind
it. Reconstruction is not completed. w e do
not know what is before us. We do not know
what we may yet have to encounter in the
State of Virginia or in other States. There
are grounds of apprehension in regard to what
may be the conduct of Virginia; and l call
upon Senators to reflect upon the gravity OF
the situation. feel constrained to vote for
the admission of Virginia. l do it for two
reasons first, because believe she has COM
piled with the conditions we have prescribed,
and therefore we are in honor bound to admit
her in the next place, because | want to Sc
cure her vote for the fifteenth amendment,
which believe is indispensable to the safety
of the whole system of reconstruction. But,
sir, confess here tonight do it with great
apprehension; and do not believe there Is
Senator here who does not feel grave misgiv-
ings in regard to what will be the result of our
action in the admission of Virginia. If the
people of Virginia shall behave as the people
of Georgia have behaved, as the people of
Tennessee have behaved, in six months from
this time we shall be called upon to encounter
a storm of Indignation at the hands of our own
constituents for our action here.
| think my friend must have understood me
two or three days ago asserting that the
power to reconstruct implies the power to
protect the reconstruction, and that that power
to protect will continue so long as protection
shall be required that if we simply have the
power to set up these governments, and then
the rebels may knock them down and we no
power to prevent it, reconstruction is idle.
say that the power to reconstruct implies the
power to protect the work that we have done !;
and if we allow the admission of these States
upon certain conditions that are vital, then the
violation of those conditions after the States
come in will be a fraud upon us, and we shall
have a right to redress the wrong will not
now say how, but the circumstances and the
time will point out the measure and the char
acter of the redress.
Mr. Carpenter. Will the Senator allow me
to ask him question?
Mr. Morton Certainly
Mr. Carpenter. l understand the Senator
to hold, as | claim myself, that the Constitu-
ton is ample for such case. Now l want
to know if the Senator from Indiana thinks
that our right will be any stronger based upon
fraud than it is based upon the Constitution?
Mr.. Morton. Mr.. President, without I'M
dertaking to answerthe particular phraseology
used by the Senator, | will endeavor to an
swer what I conceive to be the scope of his
question, and will use as an illustration the
very point embraced in the amendment offered
by the Senator from Missouri. When we
came to reconstruct these rebel States we
found that we could not do it with safety and
with success except by raising up new class
of loyal voters upon whom we could recon
struct Therefore, the admission of the col
ored men of the South to the right of suffrage
and the right to hold Office was indispensable
to reconstruction. 1t was vital condition.
We put that in our reconstruction measures.
We required them to put it in their constitu-
tons. Now, will the Senator tell me when
that was vital condition, so regarded by us,
when we acted upon it and required them to
put it in their constitutions; that tomorrow,
after they are admitted, they can violate that
condition with IMMUNITY; they can take from
the colored man the right of suffrage, the
right to hold office; they can remit him back
almost to his former condition, and that we,
having been cheated, have no remedy?
Mr.. Carpenter.-Will the Senator pardon
me for interrupting him? l understood him
to agree with me that we have perfect RENE
dy under, the Constitution. What can not
understand is that with his theory and mine
that our true remedy under the Constitution
is clear and undoubted we are to gain any add
ditional power by what he calls this compact
| or this fraud.
Mr.. Morton.-I do not call it compact.
/ beg to be understood; / do not agree to
compacts The Senator admits now, and
am glad to hear him do it, and want it to go
upon the record, and should like to have
that record made on the part of every Repub-
| lican Senator in this body, that if this funda-
mental, this vital condition OF Reconstruction
shall hereafter be violated we have the power
! and the right of redress. Is that the under
| standing? That is my understanding.
Then, sir, l might go to the Senator from
| Wisconsin, as he did to the Senator from
! Missouri, and ask him what shall be the char
acter of that redress, how he proposes to en-
force fundamental condition. He would not
be called on to answer me Tonight / could
not reasonably expect him to do SO, because
| the measure and the character of the redress
must be determined by all the circumstances
surrounding the case at the time Wher
Georgia committed that great act of treachery
we did not know how to deal with her; but
little experience after that and a little re-
Election brought us at last to the correct rem
edy. Now, sir, as is conceded by my dis
tinquished friend from Wisconsin and by
the member of the committee who has thu
bill in charge, if in case they shall violate
the terms of the constitution they have
adopted by depriving the colored men of sui
frage by depriving them of the right to holt
office, or by taking from them the school fund
or deprivins them of their civil rights under
that constitution, we have the power as Con
gress to redress that wrong, that comedies thu
whole position that have contended for from
the first. That power would not be strength
ened by putting this condition in the bill, MOI
would it be weakened on the other hand