Year: 1868

One who never knew the history of
the rebels, and who had seen so little of
the world as to believe all men honest
who but said they were, might think
from the loud professions and bolster
Gus alarm they and their Northern al
lies make over the constitution and its
violations, that they are now and always
had been its special champions and de-
tenders. While tire fact is, since the
constitution was first established there
has been no time that tho air has NOS
been filled with complaints and threats,
from the South against it and the Gov
ernmcnt, as administered under 1t. The
most unweared and strenuous efforts
have been made by the rebel section
from the beginning, either to wrest and
pervert the meaning of that great law
Of liberty and justice so as to have it
protect and forward their own unjust
and sectional plans and passions or,
falling In this, to overthrow and utterly
destroy 1t. History shows us no record
on all its pages Of such persistent, un-
yielding, and vehement effort to bend
an instrument, fashioned solely for the
defense Of justice and right, into a ready
tool of injustice and wrong. Having
for more than two generations labored
with all their ability, and with every
form ofsophistry and chicanery, to make
the constitution the firm and enduring
buiwark of human slavery in the region
where 1t already existed. as well as the
most powerful and successful agent for
speaking its poisonous seeds all over
the soil Of the whole Union, so long as
they believed that their atrocious de-
sign would triumph, and that they
could bend and force the great princi-
pies and powers of this immortal instru-
ment to their inhuman purposes, they
never ceased with one accord to extol
its eminent merits and sing aloud its
praises. They said then, nothing was
more excellent than the constitution
and the Union-no crime blacker than
to raise your hand against them, and no
parricide more infamous than their de-
struction. But the moment it was seen
be made the strong defense of slavery,
and could not be used to extend and es-
tabiish that Infamous instution every
where, there rose from the rebel section
one long howl of rage and defiance
They rushed as one man to arms, and
poured out treasure and blood like wa
ter to overthrow an instrument which
was now, in their eyes, the very en-
bodyment of tyranny and wrong. Any
ordinance, statute or constitution what
ever its origin, be it evcr so low, and
whatever its nature, be it ever SO unjust,
and atrocious,.i is the very excellence and
perfection of human law, so long as it
makes the white man dominant, with
the whip in his hand, and the black
man under his feet f; and SO long as it
protects treason, bots out all its guilt,
and restores it to place and power. And
any form of law or government, though
received direct from Heaven and writ
ten with the Divine finger, would be





thrown with scorn to to the ground,
and dashed to pieces ifpossble, if it con-
tanned no provision for setting up and
maintaining in power Southern whites
as superior class, for washing them
clean from all their guilt of treason, and
for paying them all they lost by rebel
lion.


Just now with one consent, all the
rebel press, and all their northern allies,
are hard at work to magnify and extol
the constitution. They grow hoarse
shouting the alarm cry that the consti-
tuition is in danger of violation from the |
Republicans. Men who have heard this |
clamor and croaking often before know
perfectly well what it means. There is
no danger, not the slightest to the con-
stitution. The men who fought with |
all their might and malignity for long
years to overthrow and destroy the con-
stitution, are not alarmed because it is !