Newspaper Page Text
yhe daily
SATURDAY
Morning .August 12.
jlany of our exchanges are trying
to show what the “"New Departure”
means. To all such we would say
they had better be considering what
the late victory in Kentucky means.
If any want information on that sub
ject let them read the article in to
day’s paper from the Rockford (Indi
ana) Democrat, and the able and
truly eloquent speech of Hon. J.
Proctor Knott, of Kentucky, just on
the eve of the election. A. H. S.
public Sentiment Elsewhere.
SUN old “iron ribbed” Democracy yet—
and that the true men of the Party do
not intend to run away from their
guns in the contest of 1872, nor to
(•■pike them either. They intend to
stand by them and give from them
just such broadsides as the “Bour
bons” of Kentucky gave in their late
contest and by which so'brilliant and
glorious;_a victory lias been achieved.
A. H. S.
THE NEW DEPARTURE.
The Law, the Logic, and the
History of the So-called
A men (Intents.
As an indication of the real tone
of sentiment prevailing with the
masses of the Democracy in different
parts of the country, we take the lib
erty of presenting to our readers, to
day, extracts from two letters, just at
hand: one from "Washington City, the
great centre of political action, and the
other from New York, the great cen
tre of trade and commerce, as well as
the headquarters of the. “New Depart
ures.”
These letters come not from poli
ticians, or those engaged in the work
of trying to manufacture public
opinion, but from men who look upon
goYcrnment- as something intended
for higher objects than the mere ob-
tainment of the spoils of office; men,
also, of sense, -who mix with the peo
ple, and sympathise with their feel
ings and wants; with their oppres
sions and their patriotic yearnings
for redress, through the proper,*the
peaceful, the quiet, the constitutional,
and all powerful agency of the ballot
box.
The letter from New York was
penned under the immediate shadow
of the New York World, the great
leader of those “disaffected Denu>
crats” who are now.making such gi
gantic efforts to persuade the rank
and file of the Party, everywhere, to
abandon their principles, go over
en masse to the enemies’ ground
take possession of it, occupy and
“build upon it.” This leading or
gan of the “disaffected,” established
as a Radical sheet, and having es
poused, nominally, the cause of the
Democracy only since about the close
of the war; not at all liking the
Jeffersonian doctrines announced in
the Platform of the Party in 1868, it
will be recollected, took its “Depart
ure” therefrom just before the elec
tion of that year, and contributed no
little to the defeat of Seymour and
Blah*. Like the “ lame captain” in the
story, it was the first to “depart,” and
has ever since been beating up most
lustily for recruits and followers.
This “lame captain” who thus
signalized his course by abandoning
the principles and cause of the Democ
racy in the very lieat of the first great
contest he was ever engaged iu under
that banner, now assumes to be
leader of the party!
That paper is truly entitled to the
leadership of all those who wish to
leave or “depart” from their Demo
cratic associations for any Teason or
purpose whatever—either because
they don’t like the Jeffersonian doc
trines upon which the organization
is founded, or because they think it
will “not paif’ to maintain them;
but it is entitled to no leadership in
the Democratic hosts of the United
States—the three millions from whom
it so ingloriously departed in 1868!
The extracts of the letters referred to
are as follows:
Speech of Hob. J. Proclor Knott
at Eminence, Ky.
Democratic Faitli is
Policy.
ricnio.-mtic
~Washington Crrr, D. C., 1
Uf
Fellow-Citizens : In rasp Hiding to the very
complimentary invitation I have received to address
you on the present occasion, I am oppressed with a
painful consciousness that I Ehall not be able to meet
the expectations of the large and intelligent audience
I have the pleasure of seeing before me. I have but
little capacity for mere rhetorical display, even under
the most favorable circumstauces, and, worn down
as I am to some extent “by the severe physical suffer
ing under which X have been laboring for nearly two
days past, I feel compelled to appeal to your hind
forbearance to excuse me from attempting anything
of the kind, as I am satisfied it could only end in a
mortifying failure. I trust, also, that you will par
don me if I pretermit entirely the ordinary topics of
political discussion which have occupied the popular
mind during the present canvass, and confine myself
exclusively to one which Is every day being brought
more and more prominently into view, and upon
which public opinion is yet iu the process of forma
tion. I allude to the question ns to what should be
the policy of the Democratic party with regard te
the so-called amendments to the Federal Constitu
tion. I would not be understood as underestimating
the importance of the various questions arising out
of the tariff, internal taxation, and other kindred
subjects which have been so thoroughly and ably
discussed by the several candidates almost every
where throughout tho State during the summer, but
this I consider paramount to them all; for, iu my
judgment, it not only involves the existence of the
Democratic party, but the prosperity of our form of
government and tho liberties to which we are-entitled
under it. I will crave your indulgence, therefore,
while I shall attempt to give it a calm and dispassion
ate consideration.
TnE THIRTEENTH AMENDMENT.
With regard to the Thirteenth Amendment, I have
simply to say that I suppose there is not an intelli
gent Democrat in Kentucky or elsewhere who pro
poses to raise a question as to its validity, or who en
tertains an idea that it ever will, or ever can. be dis
turbed. Infamous as was the breach of faith in
volved in the act of forcing it upon those States
whose Legislatures refused to ratify it, and whose
people were literally robbed, through its operation,
of millions upon millions of dollars worth of prop
erty; reluctantly as it may have been assented to by
those States which had been recently crashed to tho
very earth beneath the remorseless heel of a terrible
and destructive war, and which were, therefore, in
no condition to offer any material opposition to its
adoption, it was nevertheless proposed, as all con
cede, by two-thirds of all the members who had
been elected to either honse of Congress, and ratified
by tbo requisite number of States through legisla
tures chosen by electors possessing tho qualifica
tions prescribed by tho several States themselves in
their respective constitutions, and having thus be
come a part of the organic law of the land in pursu
ance of. the terms of the constitution, and having
received the acquiescence of those most materially
affected by it, no one that I know of either proposes
or desires that it should he repealed or interfered
with in any manner whatever. At any rate, that the
Democratic party entertains any such idea or inten
tion is something that will bo asserted by no ono
who possesses the intelligence of an ordinary oys
ter, or moral honesty enough to keep his hands out
of his neighbor’s corn-crib.
The so colled
FOUFTEENTH AND FJFTTENTH AMENDMENTS,
however, stand upon very different grounds. I hn.vo
asserted elsewhere, and I propose to maintain, the
truth of the proposition hero to-day, that if there is
a single particle of senso or meaning in the provis
ions of the Federal constitution, presenting the man
ner in which amendments may be made to that in
strument, neither of these pretended articles pos
sesses any more validity or effect as a part ol' the
organic law of this government, or any more bind
ing force upon the several States of this Union, either
morally or legally, than the resolutions of a mob as
sembled in the streets of your town.
I am aware that there are those who disdain any
thing like a calm, logical investigation of any ques
tion, from a constitutional standpoint; who ignore
the simplest and plainest dictates of common rea
son, and roundly assert the validity of these so-
called amendments upon the gratuitous assumption
that they are the legitinnte results of the war. I
know/too, that it has recently become the habit of
seme, who have hitherto acted with the Democratic
party, to repeat this flimsy dogma as flippantly as:
if they had learned to lisp it with tho first faltering
accents of prattling infancy. Notwithstanding i ;
seems to my mind that this specious cl3p-trap, with
which the faction In power have sought to palliate,
if not to justify, every crime it has committed against
the constitution of the country, and tho liberties of
the people for years past, is as false in principles as
it is utterly unfounded in fact.
LEGITIMATE RESULTS OF THE WAR.
It is one of tho simplest suggestions of natural
remson, one that has been recognized by every pub
licist from Aristotle down to the very latest writer
upon interhationallaw, and one which it seems to me
ought to commend itself at once to the apprehension
of the commonest capacity in the universe, that
nothing can bejustl.v considersed the logical results
of a war beyond the'accomplishment of the purpose
for which that war was declared and waged. If this
were not so there would be no limit to national ra
pacity whatever. The unsuccessful party in every
international conflict would have been liable to the
most cruel outrage that could be conceived by the
maUce, or inspired by the passions, of its more
powerful adversary, even to the indiscriminate
slaughter of its entire people. Unless, therefore.it
can be truthfully said that the war was declared and
carried on for the avowed purpose of manumiting
and enfranchising the negroes of the south; nay
more, unless it can be truthfully averred that the
war was inaugurated and prosecuted for the express
purposes of depriving the States of the last vestage
of their reserved rights, and to vest all power in the
General Government, to be exercised by it according
to the unlimited discretion of Congress, it cannot be
pretended wtth any show of either truth or reason
that these amendments arc to be classed among its
legitimate results, any more than they are the ncces-
sarv and logical consequences of tho discovery of
America by Christopher Columbus, even, conceding
that the limitations in the written constitution may
be swept away bv the military arm of the very gov
ernment established by it, and that, too, in defiance
ofthe plainest provisions of the instrument itself.
Now
WHAT ABE THE FACTS?
Certain States asserted their right to sever their
connection with the Federal Union. That right was
denied by the general government, and in order to
decide the issue thus raised between them, an appt al
was made to arms, the ultimate arbitrator of nations.
There was, however, as all will remember, a wide
spread distrust as to the ultimate purposes of the
party which had just acceeded to power, not only in
the minds of the Southern people, but with large
numbers throughout the North. And In order to
dispel any misapprehension wherever it might exist,
Congress^ soon alter the commencement of hostili
ties, declared with a unanimity and an apparent ear
nestness and sincerity scarcely paralleled in tho leg
islative annals of mankind, that the war was *‘uot
habitants may be permanently divested of all politi- pledged itself to the great principle—so fee as the
ail advantages and treated as a foreign territory— *
■*■““ “ •“ error; a grave and dangerous error. *
* * 'When the United States take pos
session of a rebel district they merely vindicate their
pre-existing title. Under despotic governments con-
nscation may be unlimited, but under our govern
ment the right of sovereignty over any portion of a
Btate is given and limited by the constitution, and
will be the same after the war as it was before.”—
Sucn was thfj theory or every department of the
Government during the progress of the war, and the
facts were exactly coincident with it when tire rebel
lion wae suppressed. The only legitimate results of
tne contest were simply the establishment of the
principle that a State had no right to secede, and the
reassertion of the supremacy of the constitution over
Ahe States lately in revolt as over the other members
of the Federal Union. When the storm of war pas
sed away it left the Southern States precisely in the
condition it found them—each with its own consti
tution, its own local government, republican inform
as it had ever been, its own laws, it3 own institutions
and its own dignity and equality as a component
part of the Federal Union.
These facts were not only recognized by the judi
ciary immediately after the war, but were deliberate
ly acknowledged by both the legislative and executive
departments of the Government in the very act of
proponingand submitting the Thirteenth amendment
to the Legislatures of those States for their ratifica
tion. That amendment was itself a solemn admis
sion of record that not even the despised institution
cf slavery had been overthrown by the war. while its
submission to the Legislatures of the secediug States
for their ratification was ail equally solemn and de
liberate admission—not only" that they were still
States, with governments constitutionally organized,
and in full operation, but tli?.t eacn oi them was en
titled to an equal voice in the ratification of any pro
posed amendment to the organic law of the General
Government. This is a conclusion from which reas
on or logic can furnish no possible means of escape,
and it seems to me that no intelligent and unpreju
diced mind will attempt to deny_or evade it.
HIST^Y O* THE AMENDMENTS.
August 7,1871
Hon. Alexander H. Stephens :
My Dear Sir—As it has been four or
five yeaTS since I \vrote to you, pardon
me for dropping you a line or two.
* * * * * * *
I fullv approve everything you have
said in* The Sun, and if there is any
salvation for the country it must be on
the line you have indicated. All the
Democrats I have conversed with agree
that yon are right, &c., * * *
I am very truly yours. ——
New York, Aug. 6, 1871.
Hon. A. 77. Mepliens: waged on onr part in any spirit of oppression, nor
My Dear Sir—Absence from tne city j for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, or pur-
delayed the writing of this letter, there- pose of overthrowing or interfering in «»y way with
J ... ,, & 1 the 'rights or establlsh-d institutions of those States,
fore you 'Will allow 1U8 at tilis time ^ to eX- J and maintain the constitution, and to
press to you rnv unqualified admiration I preserve the Union with all the rights, dignity and
of your‘‘New York World once more.” .»—««- ~vee.ist.teo unimnaired.” Ami
I have no words to adequately express
to you my approval of your article under
the above mentioned title.
It clears r.p the fog about the 14th and
15th amendments clearly and effectively.
There are no other issues in the contest
of 1S72, so living and vital as State
Bights on the one side, and centralization
of power on the other. * * *
I bless you in my heart for your explo
sion of "the “New Departure” which
says we don’t condemn the wrong itself,
but only the means by which it has been
accomplished. * “ * * *
Yours most truly,
We coulcl add many more similar
demonstrations of popular approval,
coming almost daily from Maine to
California and Oregon, but neither
time nor space will allow. We give
eoualitv oi the several States unimpaired.” And
not onlv was the design to conquer or subjugate,
in any manner interfere with the rights or institu
tions of auv State, thus declared by Congress iu the
strongest possible language, but both the co
ordinate deoartments of the government were com
mitted to the same doctrine in terms equally explic
it, emphatic and unequivocal.
The very first pledge of the executive, then recent
ly installed, was that while he bad neither the right
nor the inclination to interfere with the institutions
of any State, he would see that the laws of the Union
should be enforced in all the States of the Union
alike, while the judiciary, in every case in which the
point was directlv or Incidentally adverted to, de
clared that the status of the several States would be
tta same after the war as before in
THE 8L-PFRESSIOS OF THE REBELLION CONFERRED NO
RIGHTS OF CONQUEST.
I will be pardoned for citing one case especially,
not only because it put* this question beyond con
troversy, but because it derives ten-fold more author
ity from having been decided in the very focal center
of all wisdom, human and divine. I allude to the
celebrated case of Amy Warwick, decided in the Uni
ted States District Court of Massachusetts—a case
long since familiar to every legal mind in the coun
try la Ills opinion, delivered in that cr.ee. Judge
Sprague, the distinguished jurist, before whom it
tins tried, made use of the following plain, emphatic
i and unmistakable language: ”It lira been suppled
; Iihyc tho r giits oi a ocllir"
Proceeding then upon the hypothesis, thus acted
upon by'every department of the Government, and
which those especially who denied the right of se
cession must admit to be true, that the States lately
in rebellion had been restored by the logical result*
of the war to their previous condition as co-equal
States in the Union, or rather that their condition
had never been changed at all, but that they still re
tained all their rights, dignity and equality as such,
let ue see how these pretended amendments were
proposed and ratified. Having rescinded their sev
eral ordinances of secession, and ratified the Thir
teenth amendment, the eleven Southern States pro
ceeded to elect their Senators and Representatives in
Congress. Their Senators were elected by the very
Legislatures who had just been called upon by Con
gress to exercise the highest function in tho entire
range of their authority, and whose ratification of the
Thirteenth amendment had been accepted and pro
mulgated by it as valid iu every particular. Their
representatives were chosen by the identical consti
tuencies who had elected the members of-those Leg
islatures, and whose constitutional right to do so
was not disputed by any one, but acknowledged by
all. Those Senators and Representatives presented
themselves at the Federal capital, and asked to be
admitted to their seats to which they were entitled
under the constitution, and for which they possessed
every qualification prescribed in that instrument.—
They were, however, refused admittance, and their
States denied their constitutional right to a represen
tation iu either branch of Congress. Iu vain they ap
pealed to the constitution, which plainly and em
phatically guaranteed to their respective States an
equal voice in the Senate, and a representation in the
House in proportion to their numbers. In vain they
demanded that their respective qualifications should
be;determined by the same standard which had been
applied to the Senators and Representatives from
other States standing on precisely the same constitu
tional footing with their own. It did not suit the
revolutionary purposes of the faction in 'possession
of tho legislative department of the government to
admit them, so the doors of Congress were con
temptuously slammed in their faces, and tho entire
powers of Federal legislation assumed by au usurp
ing fragment of that body, which, with an effrontery
amounting almost to absolute sublimity, proposed
what is called the Fourteenth amendment to the
constitution, and demanded its ratification at the
hands of the very States whose Senators and Repre
sentatives it had just, ruthlessly spurned from tho
vestibule of the Federal capitol.
FROrOSED BY A MINORITY.
If you will take the trouble to extmino the jour
nals you will find that the proposition was carried in
the Senate by a vote of 33 to 11—three Democrats and
two Radicals not voting—and in the House by a vote
of 13S to'3G—three Democrats and seven Radicals not
oting. You will further find that if the delegations
from the eleven Southern States had been admitted
they ought to have been, in order to give a consti
tutional existence to Congress, there would have
been, upon a full vote, a clear majority of three against
it in the Senate, while it would have failed in the
House by sixteen votes. Yet we are told that we must
admit that this amendment was proposed in accord
ance with the terms of the Constitution, which ex
pressly requires tho concurrence of two thirds of
both branches of Congress for such a purpose. But
if the spirit of the Const itution, to say the least of it,
was thus (grossly outraged iu the manner in which
this amendment was, proposed, what shall be said of
its
PRETENDED RATIFICATION?
I confess that my limited command of language
deprives me of suitable terms ill which to character
ize the corruption, outrage, and official crime involv
ed in it front beginning to end. It would bankrupt
the vernacular itself and I will not attempt it. I will
content myself with a bare recital of facts. It was
submitted to all the States, but failed to receive the
ratification of the requsite number by four—thirteen
of them, ten of the seceding States, with Delaware,
Maryland and Kentucky, having promptly and in
dignantly rejected it
Having been thus fully and fairly acted upon by
the legislatures of all the States, and its ratification
clearly defeated, it was, according to every principle
of common reason, and every parliamentary rule and
precedent with which I am familiar, dead to all in
tents and purposes, and could only he resurrected by
being again proposed and again submitted to all the
States. But a new and very different principle was
applied. It was deliberately determined to hold on
to the votes of those States which had ratified it,
without allowing any of them the privilege of recon
sidering andreversing their action, and then by forced
fraud, and every other appliance that might be found
necessary, compel—aye, compel—a sufficient num
ber of the recusant States to give it their formal as
sent to satisfy the letter of the constitution, and thus
make a show of having complied wlth the forms of
the law. Ten States which, asl have already shown,
had been time and again recognized as coequal States
of tho Federal Union notwithstanding their rebel
lion, standing precisely upon an equal footing with
all the other States, were accordingly throttled by
the ruthless hand of revolutionary force. Their con
stitutions were annulled, their laws abrogated, their
legislatures disbanded, the ermine stripped from
their judges, and their Governors displaced, and all
the functions of civil government committed to mil
itary satraps, whose dominion over the life, liberty
and property of every man, woman and child in their
respective districts was as unlimited and irresponsi
ble as that of any absolute despot that ever lorded it
over any portion of the Almightj’’s footstool. There
was inaugurated all over the entire South such a
SATURNALIA OF OFFBESSION,
violence, outrage, and official crime of every descrip
tion, as was never seen before among civilized men,
and such as I trust in God will never be seen again.
Every guarantee in the bill of rights, every safeguard
to personal right, as well as eve.y bulwark of State
independence, was swept away like shreds of gossa
mer. The press was muzzled; freedom of speech
was suppressed; the sanctity of the homestead and
the security of the person were at .the mercy of ev
ery petty subaltern; the erdinary machinery of jus
tice was displaced by tho military commission and
the drumhead court-martial; the citizen was seized
without warrant, accused without indictment, tried
without a jury, condemned without law, stripped of
his property without compensation, imprisoned
without the benefit of the kabcas corpus,
and denied even the privilege of appealing to the
civil arm of the government for protection or re
dress. In the meantime the habiliments of citizen
ship were stripped from thousands and tens of thou
sands of the mastpntelligent portion of the white pop
ulation, through the operation of wide-sweeping bills
of attainder and infamous ex post facto enactments,
enforced at the point of the bayonet; while the bal
lot, which had been tom from tho white man, was,
by an usurpation as monstrous as it was unauthor
ized, placed in the hands of the recently manumitted
slaves. Nor was tbat all. nor half. If pandemonium
itself had taken an emetic, it conld not have vomited
up such an offseouring of miserable miscreants 3s
the hordes of loathsome vermin who, allured by the'
rich prospect of plunder, swarmed from every por
tion of the Union to fatten, like gangs of hungry
wolves, upon the fallen prosperity of that unhappy
section of cur country. (Great applause.]
I know this may sound like the extravagant lan
guage of exaggerated hyperbole, but I know, and
you know, it is the literal truth. And no man who
knows anything of the first elements of civil liberty,
who ever felt any of the more generous impulses of
the human heart, can review the long and damning
catalogue of bitter, burning wrongs which were per
petrated upon that poor, oppressed, down trodden
people, bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh, with
out feeling a thrill of indignant horror permeating
every fibre and tissue of his being. (Applause.] In
a single word (he partv in power, by the sheer exer-
"rise of brute force', and in open and shameful'defi
ance of every obligation of the constitution, created
a set of mere instruments, utterly subservient to its
own will; commanded them to organize just such
pretended legislatures as suited its own purposes,
and then compelled these so-called legislatures to
give their formal assent to its revolutionary proposi-
tions to amend the 1 -Federal 'constitution'-under the
penalty cf perpetual military vassalage- This is the
plain, simple truth of the matter, and no one with
the slightest regard for veracity wiltpretendto deny
it. [Applause!] .
loyal State* were concerned at least—that the right
to regulate the elective franchise was inherent in the
several States. Yet scarcely, had the shouts of tri
umphs which greeted their success died away before
they made this proposition to strip the States of the
last vestige of independence by robbing them of this
great paramount right Their candidate elected up
on that platform was under every obligation that
could influence an honorable gentleman to maintain
and defend, for those who had honored him with
|heir confidence, the principles avowed in it. Yet
while the acclamations that greeted his inauguration
were echoing along the heights of Arlington and
Georgetown, he was leading his imperial mandate
before the State Legislatures to violate the very first
pledge it contained. When it was before the Senate
the proposition was Bade that it should be submit
ted to Legislature to he elected, in order that the
people themselves night be heard, but it was
promptly and contemptuously rejected. What right
had tho people to be heard on a question like that, or
any other involving the destruction of their liberty ?
It was submitted to tie States, and, like the Four
teenth had been, was fairly defeated upon a full and
final action of their several Legislatures. But the
ruling party was determined that it should have at
least the appearance «f a formal ratification at all haz
ards. And what was done ? Georgia, whose Legis
lature had rejected itj was absolutely expelled from
the Union, and compelled to reverse her action and
ratify it under pain cf being subjected indefinitely to
the tender mercies of the military despotism to
which she was sumnarily remitted, while the vote
of New York was retained in favor of it, notwithstan
ding her Legislature had withdrawn her assent to
itsTatification. The Legislature of Indiana never
legally acted upon it £t all, less than a constitutional
quorum being present when it was voted upon. Yet,
when her Legislature subsequently protested against
the unconstitutional aid unauthorized act of a revo
lutionary fragment ofher former General Assembly
being taken as the voile of her people, their remon
strance was spurned with disdain and contempt, and
the act held valid.
PARALLEL CASES.
Now, suppose thatthese amendments had been re
jected by the New England States, and that Cnogrcss
had thereupon declared them mere military depend
encies upon the General Government, driven their
delegations from thei? seats, overthrown their State
Governments, limited the right of suffrage to a par
ticular class of its ow» selection, and compelled tbiat
class, through revolutionary assemblies,'to give, its
assent to them underpain of being deprived of every
vestige of free government until it should .do so,
woulditbe contentedfor a.single moment that a rati
fication procured in such a manner would have made
them valid or bindiig on any one? It would not;
hut why ? Because the Constitution no where confers
upon Congress any sich power. But where, let me
ask, does it get any nore authority to throttle South
Carolina, and compel her to obey its unconstitutional
and revolutionary beiests, than it has to treat Massa
chusetts in the same manner? What should bo in
that Massachusetts? Why should that name bo
sounded more than South Carolina? Write them to-
i jether, South Carolina is as fair a name; sound them,
:.t doth become the mouth as well; weigh them; it is
as heavy; conjure with them, South Carolina will
start a spirit as soon as Ha“sachiisetts.” [Laughter,
and applause.]
Again Iask you: Suppose Congress had gathered
up on Pennsylvania arenue a motley crowd of igno
rant negroes, vagrant carpet-baggers, and contempt
ible scalawags, called it the legislature of- Virginia,
and compelled it to ritily in that name these pre
tended! amendments, would you pretend, for a soli
tary instant, that such a ratification would have made
them valid or binding upon any body not compelled
to submit to them by mere brute force? You would
not. The most ultra Radical between the oceans
would not, and why? You answer again/ because
there is no such power delegated to Congress in the
Constitution. But where, tell :ne, is the provision
in that instrument which either expressiy or by any
kind of implication confers .upon Congress any more
authority to overturn the government of Virginia,
disfranchise her white voters, and put negroes in
their places, by arbitrary edicts enforced bymilitary
power, than it has to confer all the sovereign powers
of that Comic omvealth upon any hundred vagabond
negroes it might see proper to select in the streets
of the city cf Washington?
DEMOCRATIC FAITH.
1 T"! ?TI ■■ ■■■■" 1 ■— 1 "
the purest meu iu our laud—because I believe an im
partial and enlightened judiciary would wipe that
foul and damning blot from our escutcheon any way;
not because it seeks to enshrine the interests of the
bondholder forever, bayond tho reach of the labor
ing tax-payer—for I have never doubted the integrity
of the people, or that they would discharge the last
cent of their honest obligations if lot alone, anyway;
nor yet because of thejshameful attempt to repudiate
the millions of dollars justly due the people of my
native State, for I thank God they can live without it
[applause]; but because there is not a# encroachment
upon State authority, there is not an outrage upon
State rights, there is not a single stretch of usurpa-
" — — ■ »
one professing to be a Democrat at that time. A ■ for
myself 1 know 1 as conscientiously believed the opin
ion uttered in this resolution to be correct iu every
particular as I do that I have to die. But let ns ava
lize this a little. Hero the Democratic party dis
tinctly state in 1868, that the right of granting, regu
lating and controlling the privilege of suffrr.g rri the
States—and, of course, that includes the tin South
ern States—belonged exclusively to those s res
pectively, and that any attempt by Cong; css to de
prive them of that right, or interfere wit!: it: ter-
cise on any pretext, or in any manner whatever is
flagrant usurpation of power without auy warrant
in the constitution. Now can we _ admit that
tion of any kind; however monstrous or dangerous j this statement was untrue? We cannot without
it may be, that may not, and will not be perpetrated , admitting that wo either did not h»vo .sufficient
As for myself, reared as I havo been in the ancient
Democaatic iaith, I have always thought and always
shall think, until my mental and moral organization
are entirely changed, that Congress has no power not
delegated to it in the constitution. That whatever it
does outside of or in contravontion to the provisions
of that instrument—the very charter that gives it an
existence—is absolutely null and void, and that if the
entire population of the United States should gather
in one vast assemblage and adopt a platform, declar
ing it a “fixed fact,” and declaring any ono who
would question its validity a resurrectionist of “dead
issues,” it would nevertheless be still as utterly null
and void, with no binding effect npon any one either
legally or morally. If I am mistaken in this, how
ever; if amendments can be made to the constitu
tion in this way, proposed by a fragmentof Congress
while keeping whole delegations out of their seats by
force, ratified by mere organized mobs whom Con
gress may see proper to call States, and made “fixed
facts” by the Democracy’s simply “departing” from
its ancient faith—“folding its tents and stealing
quietly away,”—then we are under a consolidated
government with no limitations upon its powers be
yond its own discretion ; our Federal system is a
miserable sham, and tho States mere subordinate
municipalities to be made and unmade whenever it
may suit the revolutionary designs of any faction
who may get two-thirds of each HouSo of Congress
to place them under the crushing heel of a military
despotism. _ '
SACRED THINGS.
Yet it may bo eo, for vro nro told that these amend
ments are sacred things, which no unhallowed hand
must touch. To taste the “shewbread” on the alter
was sacrilege; to look upon the shekinahwa3 allowed
alone to the High Driest, and to him only when
clothed in sacred vestments, he entered the sanctum
sanctorum oi the Holy Temple; to even stretch forth
the hand to stay the tottering ark was ceatain and in
stantaneous death. But the sanctity of all these com
bined could not compare to the holiness wjiich in
vests these household gods of Radicalism which the
entire Democratic party is commanded to fall down
and worship in abject humility. [Laughter and ap
plause.] The' wretch who would suggest their re
moval from the exalted pedestal upon which they
have been placed, is doomed to a political damnation
beyond the utmost reach of pardoning grace. [Great
laughter.] They are “fixed facts,” as immutable:
the firm foundations of the everlasting universe.
“The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself;
Yea, allwhich it inherits shall dissolve.
And, like an insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not arack behind.”
But these amendments, the twin offspring of an
incestuous dalliance of brutal force with unblushing
fraud, must stand forever the sublime objects ofthe
supreme adoration of unquiet Democratic ghosts
through all the unending cycles of eternity. [Great
laughter and applause.]
THE IMPORTANCE OF RESTORING THE CONSTITUTION,
It has been said, hbwever, that these amendments
have accomplished their ends and spent their force;
that they are now but harmless excrescences upon
the body of the organic law. But granting this to
be so, which I think I can show you is far, very far,
from being true, still, in my judgment, it should be
the constant, increasing aim, the determined, in
vincible purpose of every patriot, to have them au
thoritatively annulled, if for no other reason than as
solemn and emphatic condemnation of the iniqui
tous manner in which they have been forced upon
the country, a standing memorial, a perpetual
pledge of the stern determination of an enlightened
people never to submit to any such tampering with
their organic law and system of government in fu
ture. The error of to-day is the precedent for to
morrow. That in its turn will become the prolific
parent of others perhaps more dangerous. Admit
thatthese amendments are valid and binding; admit
that alterations may be made in the organic law, in
the manner in which they have been attempted to be
made, and tell me how long it will be until you have
others of a still more alarming character fastened
upon you in the same way? How long will it be be
fore you have your Senators elected for life, and the
Chief Magistracy made hereditary in some large and
respectable family, like that of your illustrious Chief
Magistrate for instance. [Laughter.]
Do not imagine, my fellow-citizens, that I intend
th .se suggestions as an idle jest. I tell you I am
speaking in all seriousness, It has been iny duty
for several years past to watch the progress of pub
lic events, and I have done so closely and vigilantly.
Day after day I have seen some new and startling
usurpation of power by the dominant party in this
go-ernnicut, until have seen each in turn made the,
precedent, the pretext,tho stepping-stone, to arcth-
er still more alarming; and 1 warn you now sol
emnly and deliberately, that if the American people
shall acquiesce either tacitly or expressly in the man
ner in which it has been attempted to engrait these
amendments upon the constitution; if they shall
suffer themselves to become committed to any such
modes'of-tinkering with the organic ^aw of their
government by lying supinely upon their backs'in
CONTROL or SUFFRAGE WRESTED FROM THE STATES
: : jjf defiance of a popular veto.
Now; every thing 1! have said of the manner in
which the Fourteenth Amendment was proposed —id
pretended to be ratified is equally true of the Fif
teenth, and more. The Fifteenth as a grand master
piece of party fraud, as a sublime Insult to the popn-
lar sense was an improvement even upon the mon
strous features of its predecessor. The proposition
to admit the negro to tho right of suffrage had been
but a year or two before voted down .in nearly every
.. , -f Li,- 3n„i- I TiT^iTrT’Ye ri-veerr ..eut have the rights or a Dellige- Northern State - by ovenrhelnnim majorities. The
tllCSe tWO aS samples 0- the Y\ liOm. j then »f*e- t'-e retieHion is suppressed it will i Radical party itself, in the v<-ry platform upon which
v that there is life m the 1 have tho rights of corn
and justified by an unscrupulous faction, under the
pretext of enforcing them, if they are to be accepted
and retained as a part of the Federal constitution.
One by one the States will be stripped of their local
municipal powers. Every law upon which you de
pend for tho protection of your life, liberty, or prop
erty will be supervised, altered, or annulled, as may
suit the will or subserve tho purposes of the central
power. The tenure of every local office will be made
to depend upon the pleasure of the consolidated gov
ernment, whose hordes of commissioners, marshals,
detectives, pimps, and. spies will swarm upon every
community like the frogs and tho lice of Egypt, feast
ing like maggots upon the mangled and testering
members of tho body-politic. The last bulwark of
Republican liberty will be swept away. In the fierce
clash of contending factious, or the vain stvugglo to
recover the corse of murdered freedom, internecine
strife will drench your land in blood. A Marius, a
Sylla, a Fompey, a Cjesar, aye, perchance, a Brutus,
will again appear in tho eve’r-shifting, ever repeating
drama of history, and, at last, the aspiring hand of
some Octavius will seize the imperial diadem anil
wave his iron sceptre over the debauched and ener
vated fragments of a once proud and powerful peo
ple.
ltUtT.T7.En already.
Do you tell me that those are hut the horrid
chimeras of a diseased imagination, the insubstantial
exhalations of a disordered brain? Do you tell me
that we really have none of these things to Stsa/L
Look what has already been done. You have teen
citizen after citizen throttled in his. native forum by
the strong hand of Federal power, dragged hun
dreds of miles from his home, and put upon his trial
before a strange jury, in a court that has no constitu
tional jurisdiction of his person, or of the offense of
which he has been charged, ana condemned to im
prisonment or death for tho violation of no law that
Congress ever passed or ever had the power to pass.
You have seen information after information lodged
in thei Federal Court to inquire by what authority
your attorney general, your judges, your sheriffs,
your clerks, and perhaps your legislators, presume
to discharge the functions of the offices to which
they have been regularly chosen by tho people. You
havo seen your judges indicted like malefactors in
the district court for the faithful and conscientious
discharge of their sacred duties, according to their
official oaths. And you have asked in terror and
amasement, why all these strange and alarming pro
ceedings? By what authority is the province of the
State thus invaded? Ah, my friends, the Federal au
thorities have simply been carrying out the provis
ions of an act to enforce the provisions of thoFour-
teenih and Fifteenth Amendments to the Federal
constitution. D'ait till your next Congressional elec
tion, and you will see them enforce the. supplement
al provisions of the same act. You see your morn
ing papers teeming with teise and forcible denunci
ations of
• THE KU-KLUX BILL.
Day after day yon hear its fierce feaiures described,
and its monstrous provisions denounced in the fer
vid tones of indignant eloquence by orators and
statesmen, tho latchet of whose shoes I am not wor
thy to unloose. Your curiosity becomes excited, and
you turn to the bill itself, and your blood ebbs back,
chilled and curdled to its vital centre, when you dis
cover that the life, liberty, and fortune of every hu
man being in the Commonwealth may -at
any moment become subject to the irrespesi
ble fiat of a single will, that the whole machinery of
your State government may he stopped in an instant:
yonr constitution susponded, your laws superceded;
and the benign goodness of justice dethroned by the
grim, misshaped, hell-born demon of marshal law.
You seo the shimmer of tho bayonet through every
paragraph. You catch the fierce bright gleam of the
sword-blade in every sentence. Yon hear tho sharp
click of the trigger in every lino. You look abroad
over tho State, and in almost every town you behold
detachments of Federal troops in Etern battalion,
with fixed bayonets and shotted guns, ready to en
force its fierce provisions to the bloodiest letter. You
may even hear some callow fledgling, fresh from the
ball-rooms of the military school, impatient to flesh
his maiden sword upon some harmless citizen, sigh
for the signal to the flay as ho glances at the untarn
ished epaulette upon which he feels the superincum
bent weight of the entire government added to the
ponderous burden of hi3 own mighty genius.. [Great
laughter and applause.]
And you ask why all this ? Look at the title of the
bill, my friends. Don’t you see it is a bill to enforce
the provisions of the fourteenth amendment to the
constitution? Y, T ill you tell me now, in full view of
all these things, when you have calmly contemplated
them as I have endeavored to do, in all their bear
ings, and traced them all to their ultimate and logi
cal consequences, that I am laboring under a tempo
rary aberation when I tell you these amendments are
fraught with danger to -our form of government and
the rights and liberties it was designed to protect?—
“I am not mad, most noble Festus, but speak forth
the words of truth and soberness.” I tell you it is
as true as yon sun in the. heavens that your govern
ment muv be destroyed through the instrumentality
of these bills alone. Yet 1 would say to those gen
tlemen who are clay after day inveighing' against
them with all the fervor of eloquence and all the
power of logic, while secluously maintaining the va
lidity and sanctity of the foul source from whence
they sprung, that they ore only holding the anes
thetic to tho patient’s nostril while, perhaps unwit
tingly, they aggravate the disease that is sapping the
foundation of his life. 1 would say to those who are
expending all the resources of their genius iu en
deavoring to arouse the people to a sense of their
clanges by vivid and startling portrayals of the fright
ful features of these fearful measures, they had far
better tear aside the veil at once, and expose to the
affrighted gaze of their fellow-citizens all the hideous
deformity of the monsters which gave them birth,
and whose prolific wombs are yet teeming with atroc
ities still more monstrous. I tell them they had as
well attempt to turn back the resistless tide of the
Niagara with a straw, as to think of arresting the
seething flood of unlimited power that is sweeping us
onto the vortex of centralization and despotism,
while these fountain-he&dfl.of Congressional iniquity
remain. YVhy how long will it be - before Mr. Siun-
ner’6 famous bill shall become a law, enforcing, un
der heavy penalties, the absolute social level as well
as the political equality of the races ? How long" be
fore your school bouses will be forced, open, the
black and the white child seated on the same form,
and your common school fund divided between
them, under the pretext of securing equal immuni
ties to all the citizens of the Commonwealth under
the 14th amendment to the constitution ? How long
will it be before every voting place throughout the
State will bristle with Federal bayonet* under the
pretext of enforcing the 15th amendment to the con
stitution ? And then how long will it be before the
central power will have absolute control of every
thing through the farce of an election conducted un
der such auspices? And finally, tell me how long
even the semblance of your present form of govern
ment will exist ? Yet we are told we must acquiesce;
that all other provisions of the constitution may be
changed at pleasure, hut these must never ho moles
ted. The man whose impious tongue presumes to
suggest the thought is guilty, of a deadlier crime
than the fearful sin of blasphemy against the Holy
Ghost. YYe must not even allude to them save “in a
bondsman’s key with bated breath and whispering
humbleness,” with our hands on our mouths and
our months in the dust. They are more inviolable
than
“the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whoso mortal taste
Brought death into the world and all our woe.”
Let one of .them be touched and some infallible
keeper of the Democratic conscience waves in kingly
majesty his imperial truncheon, “Off with his head!”
and the unhappy varlet, whose impious hand dared
the sacreligious deed, ..
. “Cut off in theiblossom of his sin,
Uhhouseletl, disappointed, unaneled”
Glides'into a political perdition from which there is
no redemption. [Great laughter.].
HOW CAN DEMOCRATS;RATIEY THESE INIQUITIES?
But let me ask how in all seriousness;'and I do it
with the utmost deference to the opinion; and with
the highest respect for the purity of motive and pa
triotic -intention of any gentleman who may differ
with me on this proposition, can the Democratic
Ipafty With any reasonable degree of self-respect, or
any plaueible show of consistency, agree not only to
a quiet acquiescence in these amendments but pled
capacity to dircern the truth, or enough sincerity to
tell it. But if it was true theu, what has occuu ed to
make it any the less so now? If the principle is ad
mitted to be true now, how can wo admit that Con
gress had the right to throttle those ten State i as it
did for no other purpose than to compel them to rat
ify these amendments? OrifwosayfhatCongress had
no right thus to overthrow tboso States, how call we
contend that their act, committed without authority* •
du-
mo-
„ _ _ .de
liberately, that if this usurpation shall bo sanct'n ned
by tho people, it will subvert our form i t govern
ment, destroy tho States, aad establish on tho ruins
of the RepubUcacousoiidatcddespotism. Iua word,
that it will bring about a revolution thorough »ud
complete. Arc we to admit that we are rov< iltiHon-
ists? That we not only sauctiou and acquiesce in
it, but pledge ourselves to assist in bringing it about
by sustaining the very cause that is to produce it?
Are wc to say that we will not only acquiesce In
and agrcee to a total destruction of the state s, and the
centralisation of all power in an absolute despotism
to he erected on the ruins of tho Republic, but pro
test against any thing being dono to prevent it. Nay
more, that we will actually assist iu carrying on the
great work by enforcing these amendments as a part
of tho fundamental law of the land. Yet we must
admit all this, or wc must admit tho resolution I
have read to be false, both in premise and conclu
sion. Yet wc are told there will bo no inconsistency
in all this; no departure from principle; none what
ever. Then, by all means, let us doit, and if con
sistency is a jewel, as some say, why we will bo in
possession of a gem which it would bankrupt tho
exchequer of every crowned head in Europe to pur
chase. [Laughter.] I may be mistaken, but to my
mind it really looks like a “departure,” though they
y it is not in fact, however much it may rescmblo
ono in the eye of a strict construction Democrat.
FOB WHAT VOLITICAL SFTECX ?
But suppose wo do depart, what are we to gain
by it? Do you think any member of tho Radical
party will have any more respect for us, or confi
dence in us if we do ? "Will they join our party any
the sooner for it ? If yon know anything of human
nature you must be satisfied that they would not.
But let me say to you, feliow-cUizens, there aro
thousands and tens of thousands oi as honest, pure
minded, patriotic gent'emon in the Radical ranks ae
ever breathed tho vital air of heaven; man of noble,
generous impulses, but men who have hitherto acted
from mistaken impressions of fact. 1 knew many of
that character even among their representative men
Congress. Men who desire tho perpetuity of our
Federal system as much as you or I do. Those men
joined the Radical party perhaps when it professed
the doctrine.it promulgated in I860, in it3 platform
on which Lincoln was elected, the same doctrine that
tho Democratic party has over maintained, namely,
“that the maintainanco inviolate of the rights of tho
States was essential to tho balance of power on which
the perpetuity and endurance of our political system
depends.” Those meu have seen, and are begin
ning to see more clearly every day, that their party
has long since abandoned this great cardinal princi
ple, and are moving right on steadily and surely to
the fearful mafistrom of centralization anil despot
ism, and havo consequently been flocking to tho
Democratfo standard by thousands, becauso thoy
have seen the grand old party stand by and main
tain its ancient faith as firmly and manfully in the
dark hour of defeat as it did in the noontide of suc
cess. And they will continue to do so as long as wa
give them reason to believe us to be honest, earn
est, consistent men, who believe what we profess
and dare assert what wa behove.
CAN WE GAIN VOTES BY IT?
Is this not so? I appeal to tho facts. When I en
tered the Fortieth Congress the entire Democratic
delegation consisted of a forlorn hope of a little over
forty members. In tho Forty-first we had, I believe,
over seventy, at any rate, I know wo have In tho
present Congress 103, with a certainty of a further
increase. With tho same ratio of gain the next
Congress, as well as the electorial college, will be
ours, and there is no reason why wo should not havo
it if we will only bo true to ourselves. Where, then,
is the necessity of our departing a single hair’s
breadth from our time-honored principles, fortified
as they are by the highest impulses of patriotic
manhood, even tf party success is so desirable as to
justify a sacrifice of sound political principles to
attain it? YVhy, then, should wo sound au igno
minious retreat, or tamely surrender our standard
just when victory is holding out her glittering chap
let to onr grasp ? It may be sound strategy to do
so—deep, profound strategy—but I don’t think Al
exander or Hannibal, or Cjesar or Marlboro, or Na
poleon or Lee, or Yon Moltke, ever saw it in that
light. [Laughter.]
A FICTION OF THE ENEMY.
But I may be asked what I propose that the Dem
ocratic party should do ? Should it resist tho en
franchisement by force ? By no means, nor do I
suppose that any sane man iuaido or outside of tho
party entertains any such idea, but I do suppose
that any one who is familiar with the platform of
tho Kentucky Democracy ought to know what it to
proposed to do without auy suggestion frjm me
whatever. It said in plain, emphatic and unmis
takable language that it was “ready to join in all
lawful and just measures to reverse the tyranicai
acts of the party in power, whereby it sought to
strip the States of their rights and concentrate all
the powers of the Government in a great centralized
despotism.” .That language is plain enough, I sup
pose, for the comprehension of anybody; and I sup
pose, moreover, that anybody who km. vs anything
about the sterling manhood, the integrity, sincerity
and honesty of the great mass of the Democracy df
Kentucky, will admit that they men just what they
say. [Applause.] But I have heard it suggested that
the language I have just read is revolutionary. But
had it not been for the very high opinion I entertain
of the intellect of some who have done so, I should
be tempted to treat the suggestion as being scarcely
up to the level of ordinary nonsense.
THE REMEDY.
It is held by far wiser men than I am, and men of
far more legal ability than I ever hope to possess,
that upon a proper ease made, tho invalidity of these
amendments can be settled by the Federal judiciary.
Wlilie, on the other hand, I have heard it denied that
the courts had either the power or tho integrity to
do so; that the political departments of the govern
ment having recognized the caipet-bag governments
ofthe Southern States, the courts of the country aro
estopped from questioning their right to ratify an
amendment to the constitution, and that if they were
not they would not do so. How that may he I win
not now attempt to argue, but it is certain that tho
question can only bo settled when the experiment is
tried, and certainly no one will say that it would be
either unlawful, unjust, or revolutionary to try it
But, waiving the consideration of all other methods
by which it might be done, it can not he denied that
these iyranical and revolutionary proceedings can
be reversed and annulled through the same agencies
which brought them about, by the joint action of
Congress and the States. Ah, but I am told that
that will he impossible. Certainly it will, if we sit
down supinely and never try it. It may, and
doubtless will, require long, persistent, determined,
and continued effort to accomplish the reversal*W
these measures in this manner, but are we for that
reason to sit down supinely, fold our hands in de
spair, and look quietly on? Nay, assist in the de
struction of our government, and the overthrow of
our own liberties without making au effort for the
preservation of either because it will require perhaps
a long and patient effort to accomplish it ? It has
been the mission of the Democratic party to preserve
the constipation, the.rights of the States, and the lib
erties of the people iii all their original integrity, and
its highest purno.-o now is to restore our tom* and
mangled government to its pristine health and vigor,
if indeed the gangrene has not so far fastened its
fangs upon its vital centers ae to place it beyond, all
surgery ; and when it rfiiall abandon that purpose,
and lend its aid, if it ever should; to aggravate the
wounds it should heal; when it shall become the
mere camp follower of a faction which is waging a
crusade against the life ofthe constitution and. all
the liberties of the people under it, its destiny uriH
be done, its glory will be departed, and “Ichr.bod”
written upon its door-poet.-. Its efiaaces pf success,
even as a party organization, and for the privilege of
cipdi in its political creed, the preservation
-rights c£ the States as the-'surest bulwark against
auti republican fendehciVs, and the only safeguard
to individual literiy. Saying nothing of ibis great
principle which has been its polar star for
(jVF v v* V *“6 Dupuavaj up'JL uivu XXX > 1 . v- * * [<viai •- lax -x - v'li
supreme apathy and indifference to the usurpations, | seventy years, gcid-cg it alike under the bright skies
outrages and wrongs in such, revolutionary proceed- j of domestiejpeace and amid the tempe'tt of ci vil war,
ingg, it will not fee long beforethey will have aeon-i and which, I think, all must ad-i.it, will fade from
soiidated despotism erected npon the mins of tlicir '
federal republic. Nay, if they admit that the man
ner in which th^se amendments were proposed and
ratified renders them valid and binding, Attorney
Geneial Akerman was right. The States are mere
dependencies upon the central power, and may be
blotted out of existence and placed under a military
despotism whenever it suits the sovereign! will of
that power to order it to be done. What boots the
sham pretence that even the letter of tho Law has
been complied with in their enactment, -when its
spirit -is crushed to death? Augustus was Edile,
Augur, Pontiff^ tribune of the people, .Consul, Em
peror,.despot, all at tho same time, and ali in pur
suance of the letter of the Roman ccnstitution
th^jrmament h< to re the more effulgent Rgnithat
must illamice' its pathway in the “new departure” it
:3 now invited to take; leaving that feature of the
case out of view entirety, can.it afford, now, to ig
nore its own record upon these very amendments ?
Nobody has forgotten, or ialik ly to forget, that only
three years ago there was one of tho largest conven
tions of tile party that, has ever assembled, perhaps,
since the earliest getlod in the history of its brgaaiz-
tu>n. Nor hasanyffiody. forgotten that the most hes
ticea-'.le feautnre. in all its deliverances on that oc~a-
sion was tho feUowtag J
“We do declare and r-solve. that c-ver since the
people of tile.-- rtates.thrc-v off all subjection to the
.British crown the privilege and trust of suffrage
j iiave'belc-nged to the several States, and have been
XHE BEST rOLICY..
I appeal to the student of history to point to a
gle instance ' in the anna's of. the human family
where r. people, or - political party ever arose tu
power or achieved success save by a fixed, determin
ed,' persistent adherence to some great iHirposs'
ing a- —. o ,
tion of thanks to the battle-scarfed :igo.ent
ya.To’fi legions b -cause they proudly and ieoantij
bore aloft the Boman t-agh a as they a.. ■ a ly ana s.m
lenly retreated from the disastrous fields Oi Cannx.
And where was Carthage when tho.m eagles peached
upon the bleak hills of Caledonia, or nestled amid toe
rains of ancient Babylon, with an empire between
They show
"conquest; that a Stats and its in- jt had just succeeded in electing its President, had
amended to suit his sovereign will.
> But these ameml'mem are r • ...i -i.._'the j granted, regulated, and coniroled igcitttiTdyby the
harmless things that some pretend. P warn you that l political power of each State respectively, sudtkat
they are full of danger. They are srrekarged with! auy attempt by Congress, on auy pretext whatever, to
peril to your system of government and the liberties j deprive any -rate f this right, or interuru with its
to which you are entitled under it.' Not simply be- j exe rcise, is a flagrant usurpation of power, wuic-h ) t ]; , ,.
cause the negro is-dedared to be a citizen; not be- ( cau find no war
cause he goes to the polls and vote;
is declareu that no Slate shall dij
life, liberty, or property without
for although the-c*Hiiral goverum; H
repeated instances, eve if in times of profound peace., f au v.uuti - .1. : ;;-ru i>ci.-ta<*li.-h--d in i« - will;
and has assumed unlimited power to do s-j now, no Fee oral t'ni n of eo equal States."
one supposes.the States would, cr even could; do I Thi-; ;.-.ajr ;ph coutai
inch a thing with impunitv:-not that th. basis of ! Ur-.- argument. It -tans my-
. representation is sought to he changed; not because i petspicuoufcjl;.'. »«•« «•»dorses -m
! of the infamous bill of attainder, which suspends tlie 1 utmost letter, HmTTjs-eSujuwbd
sword of Damocles over the leads of thousands of conclusions v erb t nderted mo:
them ? J Applause.] Even should ail others desert
them, let the gallaut Democracy of my
the standard-bearers in I860, sti-i keep **, fre ' *
aloft as good men. brave and true, am’ a “ 6 “ “
yet rally around it sufficient to reacoo onr govern
ment from r
Le
iv around it sufficient to rescue our govero-
om the vaudalic horde that menaces its exist
(V . - -viihjut ; tu ’tttc-r
i* it vriil go do^vli yonr ’iberties ;
