Year: 1866


The Adoption Of the Proposed Consti'


tuaionaI Amendment will net be nn


End of the CoutrOversy-proot from


the Record.


The Commercial, yesterday says, said:


"The President and his policy men
shse the ebsief a5 Z S9 pan
of reconstruction is the Radical plan
We have repeatedly shown that it is
not"


tt then proceeds TO state what il calls
the Radical plan, and what the Con-
gressional plan, and says that "those
Who represent the Congressional plan
as embracing any thing else are mistaken
or dishonest" Let us see.


Mr.. Boutwell,, leading member Of
Congress from Massachusetts, and one
of the Committee of Fifteen, in recent
speech said IF the pIesent congressional
platform expressed the whole claim to
be demanded of the South, it was one
he would not support" and added:


"Ue believed that when the Thirty
ninth Congress assembled in December
next there would not be found five men
who were identified with the Republican
party who would not be in favor of i'm
partial suffrage in every one of these
ten States as condition precedent TO their
admission"


The New York Independent which, ac
cording to the New York Tribune, is more
read than any other journal in America,
and whose editor is as conversant with
the views of the leaders of the party as
Greeley himself says:


"No leading Republican in Congress
means 10 admit the ten waiting States
simply on tho adoption of the COnstitu-
tional amendment These States are to
be admitted on no condition short of the
equal political rights of their loyal Citi-
zens, without distinction Of race. A
reconstruction Of the Union on any
other basis would be National dishonor.
Uutil the rebel States can come back on
this basis, they shall not come back at all "


The Independent says further:


Congress has rot tied its hands
against the future. 1t is free to act as
the emergency may require. If, next
winter, it shall choose to make impartial
suffrage the condition of restoration, 1t
can do so. We know personally every
prominent member of Congress, and nee
kno,r that the leaders do not mean 10 admit
the unadmitted States on the mere adoption
of the amendment. Moreover, we know
personally the leading Radicals Of the
Republican party outside of Congress,
and we know that they hare no intention
of making the amendment the final measure
If Omission ITO
say, therefore, with the Syracuse Repnb-
lican Convention, or with the address OF
the National Republican Committee
that Congress will restore the ten wait.
ing States, if these States adopt the
amendment, is to misrpreseHt the issue


To show that the Commercial is wrong
and that Boutwell, and the Independent
are right, we have to refer to but one
fact stated by Mr.. Raymond, editor Of
| the New York Times, (Rep } and who il
a member of the present Congress, and
intimate with the proceedings OF thai
body and the views of the leaders. HI
saws on this very subject: The Consti
tutional amendment, so far as any actor
taken By Congress is concerned, hal
nothing whatever to do with the ddmis
sion of the Southern States to representation
The Reconstruction Committee rPorte'
such a programme, but Congress did no
adopt it. 1t passed the amendment, bu
rejected the bill Wkich made its adoption
CONDITION OF ADMISSION