Year: 1866

st"tSss


The following is an abstract of the re- |
port OF the committee of the Loyal South
ern Convention at Philadelphia, on ''non-
reconstructed States :"


The report says loyal men are taunJed
and threatened in private and denounced
in public assembages. Bowed down
and crushed by the foul spirit OF pre-
vailing and clamorous disloyal popula-
tiOn, many Of the people are selling their
estates for whatever they can get to pro-
cure money to enable them to leave and
come North. During the continuance
of the war the rebels feared that punish
ment would be meted out to them for the
wrong done to Union men, should they
fail in their object. This fear was a
protection, especially during 1853 and
1854. Now even this guaranty is taken
away. Our prosecutors are the vicege-
rants of the national power at the South.
The Union man is discarded and abjured.
He has to look forward to life of con-
tinued persecution for himself and serf-
dom for his children. The free North
offers the only refuge. Without protec-
tiOn for the present and future, there is
no hope but in exile.


This committee is in possession of in
formation that Union men dare not at
tend this convention for fear of violence
upon their return. Gentlemen Of this
convention have, since their arrival in
this city, received notices warning them
not to return home. We submit it to
the impartial justice of the American
people, if these state governments, thus
ruled by disunion oligarchy and based
on the political disfranchisemert OF
three millions of colored citizens and
the social disfranchisement of all the
loyal white citizens, are republican in
form. They are undoubtedly despotic,
and despotic in the interest of treason,
as we of the South know but too we'll
All of the restraining influences ia favor
Of the Union existing before the war
have perished from the land, save the
public light kept alive by the loyalists.
| The armed efforts to overthrow the gov
| ernment having been treated simply as
an unsuccessful but heroic act, the lead
ers of rebellion stand justified in the
| eyes Of their own people. This is the
basis of their moral justification.


They possess the lands of the South
through the favoritism of the military
despotism enthroned at Richmond. Dur
! ing the war they absorbed by contracts
| and speculation the veal lth of our section.
| They have been confirmed in the posses
sion of tEeir ih.gottons wealth by the
| pardoning power of the Executive. By
| the provisions of the National Bank act
requiring local residences for directors,
they possess control of the entire flnan-
cial power of the States, where, with the
lands, the cotton, the tobacco and rail-
road wealth, and welding the banking
influence OF the country, and speaking
by authority OF the President as support
ers Of his dynasty and his admi%%, %%,stratlVe
! policy, they dominate with an absolute
power. The remedy which is proposed
in the Presidents policy will only in
crease the sufferings Of the Southern
loyalists, and open way for perpetual
ing the tyranny of their oppressors.
The hope Of welding the united South
ern vote in the next Presidential elec-
tion has already corrupted the fountains
of national justice. An open and shame
iCSS GOdllGiOu LAS Ut6u lOTIllSu WHICH
needs only for its consummation the sue
cess of the Presidents policy. Into that
coalition have been already drawn by
| one Influence or another men heretofore
identified with the dearest affections of
the American people. Thus the work Of
political corruption will 60 on. The
South will continue compact, defiant and
sectionalized, with its anti-republican
institutions resting on negro serfdom as
| Its cornerstone, while the North will be
torn by faction and distracted by the
ambition Of aspiring politicians and con-
tending parties. The conflict of sections


will progress. Transferred from battle
fields to the halls of the National Legis-
lature, the spirit of disunion will seek
to gain by the ballot what it failed to
achieve by the sword. The second open
armed attempt at separation will be
simply question of time and favorable
| opportunity. There is but one way to
destroy this principle of sectionalism in
the South; it is by overturning the
cornerstone on which it rests. There
can be no safety for the country against
the fell spirit Of slavery, now organized
in a form of serfdom, unless the govern
ment by rational and appropriate legis-
lation, enforced by the national author
| ity, shall confer on every citizen in the
States we represent the American birth
right of impartial suffrage, and equality
before the law.