National Republican., 1878-07-26
triguing rebel sympathiser Is injured
A SPECIMEN RECONSTRUCTED REBEL.

SPECIMEN RECONSTRUCTED REBEL.
When | was at Fort Warren. . prisoner,
whore contracted many Of the diseases from
which now suffer, was shown by the officer
who accompanied me In one Of the walks l
was allowed to take, q telegram that the Cab
inct would parole Nj State prisoners on condi.
tion that they would leave the country for
ever. didn't know but that 1t was intended
TO sound me; but when he asked me IL l
would accept Il. I said mo; was born In
this country; this Is my country aud have
no other. / would rather be hung In the
United states than live In any other country
tApplause.
This isan extract from one Of ALEXANDER
II. STEPHENS recent campaign speeches, and
one that will, no doubt, be carefully bruited
about by the Conciliators as proof-positiye
that the speaker and the class Of recon-
structcd rebels he is supposed to represent,
are sufficiently loyal to be entitled the recog-
milton OH an equality with the most con-
sistent loyalists Of the North. 1t is their
habit, in the subservient Southern hero
worship of which they are guilty, to take
up such declaration as this and parade II as
evidence of the submission Of the South to
the results Of the war. But let us SEQ what
kind Of a government or country It was, or
Is, that Mr. STEPHENS preferred to be hung
in. His simple declaration was not recan-
tation Of this Calhounism, or retraction
of his devotion of the underlying
so-callod principles Of the Lost Cause.
On the contrary, 1t was nothing more
than buncombe expression-probably in
tended oven at that date to hoodwink his
hearers into belief of his false submission
to the fate Of war. We permit him to speak
for himself in another extract from the
same speech, in which he describes the
United States as n confederation of powers
delegated by several Independent States or
soveregnties. In other words, he reiterates
his secession theories at the expense of his
pretended loyalty and exposes the utter fal-
lacy Of his boastcd submission or conversion
to the results of the war; and he boldly
prophecies the ultimate success in this
country Of those infamous and reasonable
heresies. He says:
The grand idea with us Is local selfgovcrn.
ment. The States were colony formed by q
that each colouy should govern as 1t pleased,
subject only to the Crown in England. Each
was linked only through the Crown. When
the English government oppressed them, each
colony agreed TO combine for the benefit Of ALL
and the revolution was but the joint effect Of
all for the separate rights Of each, and the right
Of each to govern rs II pleased. That was the
great seminal, the colonial idea. Great Britain
recognized each as q separate State, and In the
mel M axy ya1u uamaut af thpir indana md N ca
acknowledged the Independence of each sep
arately. That was the nature Of the Govern
ment, and have often thought that q grander
future, under Providence, was In store for
the United States than for any other coun-
try. (Mr STEPHENS here repeated his
favorite propheticL vision Of EZEKIEL
and his governmental interpretations from It. }
Since the war, he continued, that the colored
people are free and have the same rights before
the law, this great vision was more completely
fulfilled. Under tho Providence of God and
under tho Democracy all should stand equal
before the law. In the reading Of EZEKIEL, you
recOllect, the prophet, to his wonder aud
amazement, saw separate and distinct living
images, all alike, with perfect functions Of in
dividual existence, and yet all 50 mysteriously
connected together by a common spirit, each
one moving as wheel within wheel, and yet
whithersoover the common spirit went all
went. so that the noiso Of their motion was
like that Of great wators-the voice Of tho
Almighty. Before emancipation tho States
of tho Union were not all exactly alike.
There were those known as slave States
and those as free States but In tho now epoch
In which we live, all In this respect arc alike,
and under the workings Of Jchersonian De.
mocracy, with peace aud harmony each State
regulating all internal matters upon the i'm.
mutable principles of right aud Justice to all,
why may we not hopefully look forward to a
new career Of higher and grander achieve
ments than any in the pastt 1t Is true, the
problem is yet to be worked out but you
may call 1t superstition or what you please,
yet have an abiding confidence, an mistaken
faith in tho Providence that rules over all and
in whose hands are the destinies of men Ms
well as of nations, that more glorious future
awaits us than anything which has been
achieved in our history in the past. may
not live to sec it, but you and your children
and children's children will If these great
principles be adhered to.