Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1879-09-18

SIR EDITOR:
Believing that l cannot at this time
urnish your readers with any more
interesting reading matter than Vice
President Wheele:'s speech at the Re.
publican State Convention held al
Saratoga on the 81 inst. l quote
largely from it
i had the honor to preside over
the Republican State Convention
twenty years ago, when the slave pow
e., having the Constitution, the laws.
tie Executive. Congress and the
courts in complete domination, was,
nevertheless, demanding for it's pecu.
liar interest rights and protection with
out the pale Of the Constitution; was
secretly organizing a vast conspiracy
against the integrity Of the Union,
and kindlin2 the flames of the ruth
les civil var, which, within two years
thereafter, opened it's dread drama in
Charleston harbor in the glare of
eleven batteries of artillery, which
hurled their iron bolts upon one small,
siegeworn company of United States
troops whom the Government, in its
earnest desire to avoid hostile demon
stration, was endeayoring to feed and
not to reinforce. 1t was at Sum
ter that the experiment of starving
the Government was Initiated, with
rePcGtions at Anders0nvilIe and other
places of historic brutality, and, more
recently. at Washington at the late
extra session Of Congress.
came to this position again in
1872. The curtain had then fallen
Rpon the bloody drama nnened at
Charleston. he long. weary, bat
ting years that had interviewed had
driited into the dead past. The flag
had been lifted up from its humilia-
ton at Sumter, and again inyiolata
and supreme, proclaimed the National
Sovereignty from the Potomac to the
Rio Grande 4 half million Of the
defenders Of that Sovereignty were
sleeping i'll soldier graves. The blood
of hundreds Of battle fields; the en-
blcms OF mourning; the tears In mill
lon of sacglic;al homes; the bereft,
the desolate, the helpless, the Scared
and the wasted, encountered on every
hand, attested the costliness OF the
sacrifices which had been made tor the
National life We then confidently
believed that, by an immutabIe law of
the Slpremc Ruler. such sacrifices
had not been made in vain; that the
Nation blood, the Nations tears aud
the Nations treasures had>tound com
pcnsation IN the destruction of the
germ Of the fatal h4resy of secession,
aud IN saving the grand frame work of
our government from falling into
wretcnei fragments With immense
maiorities in Congress and every
Northern State, and omnipotent to tx
the status Of its defeated enemies, the
Cover lment, with L magnanimity for
which the history of the world furni-
shes no parallel, treating the contest
IS one Of principle and not Of person
al hatred, and lifting Itself above the
low level Of mere sectional triumph,
had condoned the crime of treason
and rebellion and actually reinvested
traitors and reoels with the rights they
had forfeited, and made them equal
participants in the privileges they had
insolen5ly cast off in their mad pur-
pose to destroy TIE Maternal authority
This magnaninity has been supplauted
hy every possible effort to inaugurate
ia the southern section of tins country
a substantial era Of reconciliation and
peace. Military @arrisons have been
withdrawn, all alledg,d National inter
ference heretofore complained OF, dis
continued, and, contrary to all polit-
cal precedent, appointments to Office
have been given to those who few
years since were moving heaven and
earth to PROSTATE the Government and
the Union.
To-day we are here confronting the
consequences of the magnanimity of
the government and of its wasted and
despised efforts to conciliate its late
armed assailan5s. 10 the light OF re
cent events, it IS not hyperbole to in
quire. Was the sIrrenIec at Appomae-
tox wretchel. hollow truce. pitched
up to enable the rebellion to choose a
new line Of assault upon the Union.
and was the mushroom Confederacy
Proclaimed at Montgomery. really a
become the living, controlling forces
Of this country. The spirit which
deiel the authority, ana sought to
destroy the unity Of the Republic has
again taken living form in a solid
South, supported by the whole rower
OF the party North which, in 1861,
declared that the Constitution hal
leit the government Ioneiless in the