Year: 1865

CDd1pe IN our puDllc cOunclS Hluhl DcCuT OI
we shall be stripped of the birthright which
we most valued.


But were the proposed action practicable
in a legal point Of view, / should shrink
from the policy as putting US upon utcnable
ground, and making us to assume the char
acter of aggrcssors while we profess TO DC
fighting against and Furnishing aggression
we, who ought in this terrible business, to
have no stain upon our hands. Undoubt-
edly the rebellion is a great wrong but it
would certainly be meeting wrongwith wrong
to deny them their original constitutional
rights in the Union when they shall have
returned to it. Whoever wishes for their
return should openly condemn all such pol
icy. Whatever moral question may be in
volved in the subject of negro slavery in any
State of the original Confederacy is a ques
ton for determination and settlement only
by the people of such State. To abandon or
maintain the institution according to the
sense, will, and policy of the people of such
local sovereignty, was an undisputed right
before and at the time of their entering into
the Federal Union and the great compact
of confederation, the Constitution of the
United States, gave them no new right in
that respect, but only guaranteed to them
the undisturbed enjoyment of of preexist-
ing right, with such full recognition of the
same throughout the country as should en-.
able them safely to assert their right of
property in the labor of slaves, even in the
recapture of fugitives from their service in
any State. BY the amendment it is proposed
to crush out a sovereign right and power
which never was placed within the jurisdic-
ton of any authority except the local sover-
eighty bywhose laws it exists. The reserva-
ton of such powers and rights to the States
and the people is the main principle of the
Government framed by Washington and his
compeers. 1t canuot now be changed ex
cept by revolution.


The success of this proposition would dash
the cup of hope from the lips of majority
of the people of all the adhering States. II
is the desire of "A great majority of our peo.
pie to reconstruct the Union upon its old
basis. Upon that basis compromise can be
made and the war honorably closed; but
upon no other or more restricted plan can
it be DONE Subjugation of the South, and
sway over it, can be accomplished only by
standing armies We cannot dictate in any
other way the abandonment Of their consti.
tutional and reserved rights. Can we afford
ing, the lack of all substantial success which
lluSl upull SuCI pOllCy


The pretense of a humanitarian motive
toward the negroes amounts to nothing but
adisplay of systematic and intense hypocrisy
All sensible men perceive that the negro
slaves, whether held under the new bondage
of the so-called freedmen, on con6scated
plantations, or scattered in want and unde
served suffering over the North are the
much-abused and unfortunate victims Of al
unlawful interference with the protection
and support to the benefits of which the,
were born; and that the best possible dis
position of them is to restore them to thei
primal condition. They have been used a
a party political iustrumentality to thei
bitter cost, and they have sense enough t
know that politicians cannot reverse tn
decree of Almighty God and make thei
race equal, socially or politically, with whit
men. Such may be the opinion of the ia
natical politician but the more sane min
of the negro, weak as it may by, has to
much persipicacitynot to perceive the deceI
tive bait which is thrown him. Many G
them are now signing for the happy home
from which they have been seduced.


, Let us take honest counsel together ant
agree to let the Constitution alone, witt
the hope of restoring the happy old consti
tutional regime. That the Union may b
restored and peace again pervade this dis:
tracted land, it needs only that the prevail
ing voice of the people should declare for al
acquiescent administration of the Govern
ment according to the Constitution, which
all Americans once acknowledged as the
palladium Of our national honor and glory
Upon such just and judicious proffer th'
States and the people could no longer be
kept in severance They would recohert
| hn OF att


Whoever disbelieves this is blind to the
teachings of the most illustrative history
and to the whole field of political cause anC
effect. Union men should do nothing tC
lessen or defer the probability of such re
suit but hasten to apply the efficient caus,
by which it may be achieved.


| am aware that on this important occa
sion, which involves nothing less than
summing up and exhibit of all the Republi
can victories over the ballot-boX and the de
! nouement Of the original purpose of tina
, party, we must expect to hear, instead of
fair discussion of the great subject, the usua
and familiar stump-speech poetry Of thu
driver lash, the horrors attendant upon tn,
disfranchisement of ''OW brethren" by tn,
aforesaid ''sum of all villainies," that th,
awful importance of this bold attempt to d.
spoil the American Constitution, considered
in the effect its success will be likely to hav,
upon our national condition, will not secure
in this time and place logical, dispassionat
solution of the question presented, but tha
political partisanship on the part of tn,
majority will furnish much Of the influence
controlling their acts.


The conservative members of this Hous
should recognize double duty in the crisi
and eventful epoch of our history in whicl
they are placed-the duty of respectful rev
erence for the wisdom and patriotism o
those who were enabled to construct tn
grand ediiice of statesmanlike thought an,
popular liberty which many seek now t
subvert or overthrow, and alsothe high obi
cation resting upon them as trustees for
coming generation, who in the midst Of sor
row and oppression may demand of then
what they did in the time of mortal actio
for the presei vation and transmission t.
them of their inheritable and inalienabl
rights