Year: 1868

KENDALL GREEN, August 20.


Alexander Rutherford, Esqr. Chairman


etc.-Dear Sir: duly received your lette


of the 18th instant, as chairman of com


mittee of the Jackson Democratic Associs


ton inviting me to attend at the dedication


of their hall on the evening of Thursday next


and expressing the belief that my association


with General Jackson will enable me "tt


add interest to the occasion"


In reply, | have the honor to thank yol


and your committee for remembering me il


my secusion, and to inform you that my


duties elsewhere on that evening and my dis
inclination, at the age Of seventy nine years


10 mingle in political exciements, forbid ar


acceptance of your kind invitation. Bu


recognizing the duty of every living man tc


do what he can to serve his country In times


Of danger, have no hesitation in commune


eating to you and your association the view


| entertain upon the issue involved in the


elections of this year.


OF the men who are candidates | have


nothing to say 1t seems to me the duty Of


every true patriot in this momentous crisis


to think only of the great principles and re


suits involved, and overlooking all that is


merely personal in the candidates, consider
them as merely instruments in maintaining
those principles and affecting those results.


A vast majority Of our Northern people went
into the late war for the preservation Of the
Union. The war was successful, and the
Union was preserved. The rebels every.
where laid down their arms, and peace was
restored throughout The land. All that was
needed to make that peace perpetual was
Stale officers in all the seeding States, sworn
TO support the Constitution of the United
States.


True, every man who had borne arms
against the seeding States, and every one
who had given aid aud comfort, had, under
the Constitution and existing laws, incurred
the penalties of death and confiscaton.-
From these penalties they could be relieved
only by the constitutional pardoning power
or by trial and acquita in the Courts. The
ul,ject was exclusively executive and judicial,
and altogether beyond the rightful jurisdic.
ton of the legislative power Now, who
does not know that had the amnesty procla-
nations of the President been allowed to
have their legal effect, and the Southern
States been permitted to reorganize them
selves under officers sworn to support the
Constitution Of the United States, we should


long ago have had peace and comparative
prosperity throughout our borders? Why
is it not so? 1t is attributable entirely 10
the usurpations of Congress. That body
began by adopting the absurdty that the
successful war for the preservation of the
Union bad in fact destroyed The Union that
in compelling the seeding States to reman
in the Union our armies bad in fact thrust
them out; and that however anxious the
Southern people might be to stay in or get
in they would not do so without asserting
to such conditions as Congress might pre-.
scribe. II the success of the war put the
Southern States out of the Union, would its
failure have kept them in? On this absur
d,y was based the entire reconstruction
legislation of Congress. They assumed that
the seeding States, instead of being portions
of our Republic, were altogether foreign, and
that their people instead of being repentant
rebels, were conquered enemies. Upon
these pretexts they took them out of the
constitutional supervision of the executive
and Judicial department of the Government,
and subjected them to the unlimited power
of Congress, irrespective of the Constitution,
instead of leaving them to be pardoned un-
der the laws in existence when tn eir crime
was committed, they passed ex post facto
laws, imposing upon them new and unheard
of disabilities, from which their victims, &C.
cordipg to their theory and practice, be re-
lieved only by the usurpng and absolute
power which had imposed them and when
the president and judiciary indicated dis
position to exercise their constitutional rights
they sought to deprive them of their righttul
powers by legislation, and by threats of pun
ishmen,s by impeachment. Thus, practical
ly, has Congress subverted the Constitution,
and, on this subject, taken into their own
hands all the powers of Government-legis
Iatve, executive and judicial. If their theory
we're true, instead Of being false, as it is
where did they get the power to legislae
over the seeding States-to treat them as
outlaws, and put them out of the pale of civ
ilized and republican institutions? Not, sure
ly, 10 the Constitution of the United States.
And if not there, what rightful power had
they beyond that of any other body of usurp-
ers not bearing the title Of memb Of Com
gress, to legslate over these people at all
The party that has produced all this wrong,
and oppression, calls itself Re-
publican. Before and duling the war, its
leaders maintained that the Southern States
had no Republican Government, because the
negro had no right to vote. The same men
have joined in imposing governments upon
those States in which large numbers of white
men have no right to vote and yet these
governments are Republican enough for
them. And these Republican leaders have
shown their regard for Republican Govern
ment by the scheme lately concocted in
Washington and sent out to be executed by
their tools in the South, for taking even from
these newly fedged voters the ight to vote
for Presidential electors-a right long ex-
ercised by the people of every State in the
7 @