Year: 1868

The Conventions in Virginia, Georgia ana
I I.ouisiana are well under way. Those IN North
Carolina, South Carolina, and Mississippi nave
inst organized. The great work of reconstiuc-
tion under the Congressional policy Is now IN
nrogress and we ask our readers to note care
fully the following characteristics which per
tain to it in every State:


/ II is not, like the Presidents Reconstruc-
tion Conventions of two years ago, the work
of q wagon-load of men who want to be state
officers. Such was the repugnance OF the Rebel
element to Johnsons reconstruction policy
ot the time of its adoption, owing to Its pro-
nosed exclusion Of certain classes OF Rebels
from Office, that but very few votes were cast
either for or against the Conventions; many
districts were wholly unrepresented Ill each
State, and, though none but the whites were
permitted to be represented at all, ana the
really loyal portion of them were not In fact
represented yet the remaining or disloyal
whites treated the whole affair with
such contempt that only by sollc-
itation, and as marked favor, could
the few who were permitted be induced 10
take part in it. When all who had taken act
i've part in the Rebellion were excluded, and
all white and black Unionists were ignored,
there remained only that class OF negative
Rebels who had never done anything on
either side, and had no influence with either
party. These formed the Johnson Conven-


ions, and were as competent to form gov
eminent as sIim-milk is to make butter. The
nresent reconstruction movement, on the other
hand. actively enlists the energies, pro or


IL. HI L.. annh
whole peopIe. Rebels and Unlonsts, black
and white ex-slave and ex-master, Ill the COM
monwealth it proposes to form 1t Is III the
best sense of the word RADICAL than which
there could be no higher praise. A few lead
ing ex-Rebels, who violated official oaths TO
rake part in the Rebellion, are excluded at
present from voting but these probably DO
not exceed from 1000 s. 10000 III any one
State. and we doubt if they amount to 3OoOo
altogether 4 far larger number OF whites
deemed themselves excluded by the oath when
President Johnson required them to take as a
condition of voting. The present reconstruc-
tion movement therefore, includes substantially
the whole people of each Southern State. The
law was SO framed that the absence OF any
registered voters from the polls counts as a vote
against the policy Of Congress as eiiectuaiiy Us
if they appeared and voted, and hence large
numbers of those opposed have registered but
declined voting In no State governments which
have ever been formed in the United States has
there been a more general and comprehensive
representation of the whole people than IN
those now forming in the Southern States.
This alone argues powerfully Ill Deh'sll
of their probable equity, justice, ana
neacefuluess. For most strife springs
from injustice, and most injustice arises from
failure to hear the injured party. In govern
ments in which all the people are heard, there
fore. Justice is inevitable and strife Impossible.
This happy result could never have attended
the Johnson plan of reconstruction, by which
the heel of the Rebel was placed on the neck
of the negro and the former was given the
lash and the latter the gag.


III. Not a single vindictve or Objectionable
provision has been introduced into any South
ern Constitution. They are all laid on the
broadest basis of all rights for ali men. They
are thoroughly democratic in the true, not the
sham. meaning of that word. There has been
no punishment of Rebels, no conhscatlon
of lands. no provisions for paying the
freedmen for the services rendered to their
masters between the dates of their legal
and their actual emancipation, no disfranchlse-
mcnt of Rebels as such, or exclusion of them from
holding State Offices, further than Congress
had already done. Men like Hunnicutt OF Vir-
ginia who were falsely accused OF advocating
proscriptiye measures, are found proposing the
most charitable and liberal policies. The Ala
bama Convention has ordained that no man
shall vote who desires to exclude any other
man from voting on. account of race or color /;
but if this excludes a single white man from
voting. it is his own fault. How unlike is this
magnanimlty of the Republicans of the South
to the conduct of the Johnson reconstruction
lists, whose first efforts were devoted to fram-


ing black codes which would recnslaye half or
two thirds Of the people for whom they were
called TO legislate.


ILL., The present Reconstruction Conventions
are mainly composed of men intensely loyal to
the Union-men who have fought for the Union
heretofore, and are ready to do so again, or
men who having fought for the Rebellion i'll its
time. are now fully converted from pro-Slayery
principles, and are determined To resurrect their
States on the basis of equal rights for all men
and oppression and prescription for none. In
this respect they contrast strongly with the
johnson Conventions, made up wholly of un-
whipped Rebels, more devoted to the lost cause
than those who had fought for it in battle


". There is every evidence that the Consti-
tutions to be adopted will be ratified by a
very full vote of the whole people. white and
black, after excluding the few thousands who
committed perjury IN joining the Rebellion.
In this respect they will contrast with the
johnson Constitutions, which his satraps did
not venture TO submit to the people in sin
ole Southern state, even when all the blacks