Year: 1867

white man who has any respect for the
rights of his own race. If this con-
tinues il must become worse and worse,
until all order will bo subvertcd, all
industry cease, and the fertile fields Of
the South grow mp into wilderness.
OF all the dangers which our nation
has yet encountered, none are equal TO
those which must result from the sue
cess of the effort now making to Afri-
canize the half of our country.


FINANCIAL ASPECT OF RECONSTRUCTION.


l would not put considerations of
money in competition with justice and
right. But the expenses incident to ''re-
construction" under the system adopted
by Congress aggravate what regard as
the intrinsic wrong of the measure it
self. 1t has cost uncounted millions
already, and if persisted in will add
largely to the weight of taxation, al
ready too oppressive to be borne with
out Just complaint, and may finally re-
duce the Treasury of the nation to n
condition of bankruptcy. We must not
delude ourselves. 1t will require q
strong standing army, and probably
lndu L"O VA WI
lars per annum, to maintain the su-
premacy of negro governnents after
they are established. The SUN thus
thrown away would, if properly used,
form q sinking fund large enough to pay
the whole national debt in less than
fifteen years. 1t is vain TO hope that
negroes will maintain their ascendancy
themselves. Without military power
they are wholly incapable of holding in
subjection the white people of the
South.


/ submit to the Judgment of Congress
whether the public credit may not be
injuriously affected by system of meas
ures like this. With our debt, and the
vast private interests which are COM
plicated with it, we cannot be too eau
tious of policy which might, by pos
sibility, impair the confidence of the
world in our Government. That
confidence can only be retained
by carefully incuicating the prin-
ciples of justice and honor on
the popular mind, and by the
most scrupulous fidelity to all our en-
gagements of every sort. Any serious
breach of the organic law, presisted in
for considerable time. cannot but Gre
ate fears for the stability of our insti-
tutions. Habitual violation of prescrib-
ed rules, which we bind ourselves to OBJ
serve, must demoralize the people. Our
only standard of civil duty being set at
naught, the sheet-anchor of our politi-
cal morality is lost, the public con-
science swings from its moorings, aad
yields to every impulse of passion and
interest. If we repudiate the Constitu-
ton, we will not be expected to care
much for mere pecuAiary obligations.
The violation of such pledge as we
made on the 22d day of July, lS6l, will
assuredly diminish The market value of
our other promises. Besides, if we now
acknowledge that the national debt was
created to hold the States IN the Uniep,
Union, as the taxpayers were led to sup
pose but to expel them from it and
hand them over to be governed by
negroes, tho moral duty to pay
il may seem much less clear.
say it may seem so; for do
not admit that this or any other argu-
meut in favor of repudiatiou can be en-
tertained as sound but its influence on
some classes of minds may well be ap-
pretended. The financial honor of 4
great commercial nation, largely in
debted, and with republican form OF
government administered by agents of
the popular choice, is thing of such
delicate texture, and the destruction OF
it would be followed by such unspeak
able calamity, that every trua patriot
4 -, f,rl .
expose it to tho slightest danger.


The great interests of the country re-
aaire immediate relief from these enact
ments. Business in the SOuth is para
lyzed By n sense OF general insecurity, by
the terror of coniscation, and the dread
of negro supremacy. The Southern
trade, from which the North would have
derived so great profit under a govern
ment of law, still languishes, and can
never be revived until it ceases to be
fettered by the arbitrary power which
makes all its operations unsafe. That
rich Countrywide richest in natural
resources the world ever saws worse
than lost if it be not soon placed under
tAe protection of n free Constitution.
Instead of being, as it ought to be, n
source of wealth and power, it will be
come an intolerable burden upon the
rest of the nation.


TIE LESSON OF TIE LATE ELECTIONS.


Another reason for retraCiHg
eur steps will doubtless be seen by
Congress in the late manifestations of
public opinion upon this subject. We
live in a country where the popular will
always enforces obedience to itself,
sooner or later. 1t is vain to think Of
opposing it with anything short of le-
gal authority, backed by overwhelming
force. 1t cannot have escaped your at
tention that from the day on which
Congress fairly and formally presented
the proposition to govern the Southz
ern States by military force, with
a view to the ultimate estab-
lishment of negro supremacy, every ex-
preston of the general sentiment has
been more or less adverse to it. The
affections of this generation cannot be
detached from the institutions OF their
ancestors. Their determination TO pre-
serve the inheritance of free government
in their own hands, and transmit it un-
divided and unimpared to their own
posterity, is too strong To be successful
ly opposed. Every weaker passion will
disappear before that love of liberty
and law for which the American Peo-
pie are distinguished above all Others
in the world. -...-..


IF NECESSARY, TIE PRRsIdENT WILL FIGHT.


How far the duty of the President,
"to preserve. protect, and defend the
Constitution" requires him to go IN op-
posing an unconstitutional act of Con.
rress, is very serious and important
question, on which / have deliberated
much, and felt extremely anxious to
reach proper conclusion. Where an
act has been passed according to the
forms of the Constitution by the supreme
legislative authority, and is regularly
enrolled among the public statutes of
the country, Executive resistance to it,
especially in times of high party excite
ment, would be likely to produce viO-
lent collision between the respective ad
herents Of the two branches of the Gov
ernment. This would be simply civil
war and civil war must be resOrted to
only as the last remedy for the worst of
evils. Whatever might tend TO provoke
il should be most carefully avoided. A
faithful and conscientious Magistrate
will concede very much to honest error,
and something even 20 peryerse malice,