Year: 1868

from the shock of disappointment those who


may have hoped that the anti-radical move


ment, under Democratic organization, would


or could, by federal action, reinstate affairs


in the Southern States, as they were before
the reconstruction scheme of Congress was
enforced. If such facts must be submitted
to, of necessity, for an indefinite period, the
expediency of candidly recognizing them, and
of promptly setting to work to make the most
of them, is too clear for rational question.
1t will not do in political concerns, any more
than in private business, to try to escape from
an unwelcome truth. Like sin, it viii find
the fugitive, let him fly or conceal himself
where he will. And there is no folly more
suicidal and disastrous than that which pro-
poses to shut out a flood of mastering
certainties by plunging the head in pool of
muddy delusions.


The first step towards the desired rein
statement would be the repeal by Congress of
the acts under which the Constitutions, now
about to be inaugurated in the South, were
created. But it were idle to think Of these
acts being repealed by the Republican sena-
tors and representatives who enacted them;
ana it were equally idle to hope for such
reconstruction of Congress, within four years
to come, as would replace Republican with
Democratic majorities in that body Even
if the political complexion of the House
should be changed by the congressional cleo
tions of the next year, in the Senate the Re-
publicans, reinforced by twenty members
from the South, would be assured of a ma
jority for the ensuing four years. This ma
jority would take care to veto all attempts by
the Democratic majority in the House to I'M
do Republican policy with respect to the
Southern States. And thus, as regards re-
pealing legislation, the Republican power in
Congress would be as absolute as it is now.


Nothing can be nationally expected in this
relation from the Supreme Court If it was
powerless to arrest the execution of an uncon-
stitutonal law, it win be still more powerles5
to reverse state of things resulting from the
accomplished operation of the same law. 1t
refused in the Rhode Island Dorr case to take
jurisdiction over questions of State organiza-
ton, and it is perfectly safe TO assume that it
will not hereafter venture to cancel existing
State governments in the South, however un-
righteous the policy and unconstitutional the
legislation which led to their creation.


But let us suppose that the Democrats not
only elect the next president, but secure ma
jorities in both houses of Congress. Let us
suppose that the whole batch of reconstruc-
ton acts is repealed. What does such a re-
peal amount to? The obnoxious legislation
is executed. States are reorganized under it's
provisions. Will the mere form of words
repeating it dissolve and dissipate these or
CARNATIONS, as the magic trumpet of old ro-
nance, with one blast caused castles and
palaces to crumble and vanish? No, assured
ly something more than Legislative formula
of repeal is necessary to remove them. Mean
while they exist de tacto, and to the exclusion
of any theory of de jure. And if search is
made for logical embodiment of the latter,
where will it be found? Not Short in Louis
lana, of the old State organization, under the
Constitution of 1852. But that is dead
as dead, for all present and practical pur-
poses, as Julius Caesar. And the work to which
Southern craftsmanship is now called, is not
to exhume the buried Caesar, and to pretend
with empty mummeries that he is living and
all powerful, but to save Rome by laying hold
of the realities around us. Who would
hope to undo a murder simply by breaking
the gun with which the crime was perpe-
trated? Yet it would be no more absurd than
to believe that the whole structure raised by
Congress in the South through the recon-
struction acts, can be demolished by the
mere repeal of this legislation. Long before
the repeal, the work would be finished ; the
ball would have sped to its destination it
would be useless merely TO break the weapon.


Yet it would not be absolutely impossible
for Democratic majorities i'll Congress, aided
by friendly executive, to abolish obnoxious
Constitutions in the South and clear the way
for another and better set of State govern
ments. But they are forbid by Democratic
principles to adopt the necessary measures
for doing this. They would have to repu-
diate the Democratic doctrine that to the
States alone belong the regulation of suf-
frage i'll the States, and would have to assume
over the Southern States the same control
which the Democratic party has denounced
as tyTannical usurpation when assumed by
Republican najoIiues in Congress. They
would have in short, to take up the congress
sional work Of sovereign interference with
the organic institutions of those States where
the Republicans left it after having prose
cuted it to the accomplishment of Repub-
liean purposes, and to adopt another scheme
of reconstruction TO be enforced, by the
bayonet if need be, for Democratic pur-
poses. Viewed from the theory now prevail
ing in the Democratic party as to the rights
of States and the limitations of Congress,
this policy would be wholly out of the ques-
ton, even if Congress were at this moment
under Democratic ascendagcy. And specu-
lation about it as a problem of an indefinite
future, must be quite irrelevent to the exi-
geneies OF the present The probable effect
of declaring in favor of such a course