Slike strani
PDF
ePub

absolve any citizen from that allegiance and the obligation to obey the laws of the Nation.

Third, That States and citizens of States rebelling against and making war upon the United States, become public enemies, and are not entitled while such, to set up the privileges of citizens, under the Constitution, to shield them from liability as public enemies.

Fourth, That the right to emancipate the slaves of a public enemy, in time of war, is legal according the law of nations. Fifth, The Rebel States having withdrawn from the Union, and having through their State Governments in their corporate capacity, set up a hostile Government de facto, upon the soil of the United States, and organized a Confederate Government de facto within its jurisdiction, it became the duty of the National authorities to overthrow and subjugate these usurping and hostile Governments and expel them from their territory.

Sixth, Such hostile de facto Governments, State and Confederate, being overthrown and expelled, it thereupon became the duty of the United States to govern the territory constituting the insurgent States, until Governments, republican in form could be organized and established in such States.

Seventh, That during the continuance of war, and while such hostile State and Confederate de facto Governments were in existence, they were not entitled to participate in the Government they were thus seeking to overthrow. When such hostile organizations were subjugated, it became the duty of the United States to organize, establish, and guarantee to such States, State Governments republican in form; and that until such new State Governments were organized, loyal to the Union, and republican in form, of which Congress must determine, such portions of the Union are not of their own motion, and independent of the action of Congress, entitled to representation in Congress or participation in the Electoral College. In the language of Mr. Lincoln, it is for Congress to say "when or whether members should be admitted to seats in Congress from those States." *

* That secession and nullification are treason, has been established by the judiciary of last resort, the conflict of arms. That which would have been done by Mr. Lincoln, had he lived, and what was expected on the accession of Mr. Johnson,

The national authority vindicated by war and established by victory, is now placed on solid foundations, maintaining the rights of the States to manage their local affairs, our Government in the hands of a pure and wise man, like Lincoln, is the strongest and best in the world. It is the strongest, because its officers are the servants of the people, and the Constitution is the highest expression of the will of the people; and the war has shown that the people will rise to its support and maintenance with an energy unknown under any other form of government. When before have the people rose by the million, and voluntarily gone into the army to sustain a government? When before have any people assumed voluntarily such enormous pecuniary burdens to

was a solemn, imposing judicial trial, conviction, and sentence of traitors. The one act of his life to which Mr. Andrew Johnson owed the Vice Presidency, was the bold denunciation of traitors which he uttered in the Senate on the 2d of March, 1861. The people, when he entered the Executive Chair, remembered that he then and there said, "were I President, I would do as Jefferson did in 1806, with Aaron Burr. I would have them (the conspirators) arrested, and if convicted within the meaning and scope of the Constitution, by the eternal God I would execute them." (Congressional Globe, Second Session, Thirty-sixth Congress, p. 1354.)

He did not for a few weeks after his accession permit the people to forget these declarations. In his reply to the Illinois delegation, and on other occasions his language was so vehement, passionate and denunciatory against traitors that considerate people feared an excess of violence, and an absence of the sobriety, dignity and decorum which should ever characterize the Magistrate in the administration of justice. By what means the President has been induced to take to his confidence as his most trusted advisers, those whom he threatened to hang as traitors, it is not my purpose now to investigate. But the thoughtful people of the United States anticipated not for the purpose of vengeance, but for the influence of example to make treason "odious," and to deter in future, bold, bad and ambitious men from stirring up civil war; that the decision of the sword would be affirmed by the most imposing State trial in modern times. The world cannot yet be governed without punishing crime-and there is no way by which crime can so effectually be made "odious" as by hanging a criminal. But this apparently is not to be. In the present condition of affairs, with the President on the side of the prisoner, it would be a failure and a farce.

There will be probably no judicial trial. The spectacle will be presented, of a conspiracy covering a whole continent with blood, a rebellion carrying death and desolation throughout the land, without one convicted criminal, or one judicial sentence.

Those who plotted treason in the Cabinet and in Congress, those pledged to loyalty by official oaths, the soldiers who deserted their flag, those who were responsible for the horrors of Andersonville and the butchery at Fort Pillow, are all to be forgiven, restored to their forfeited rights, and their treason, instead of being made odious, is to be considered honorable and heroic. The most guilty are to be the most honored; while the faithful Union men are to be driven into exile by persecution and social ostracism? The leading traitors are to be canonized and held up as examples for the young to emulate and follow. Robert E. Lee is President of a college, and Raphael Semmes a professor and teacher of moral philosophy!

maintain the integrity of a nation? In war, as in peace, the popular will, constitutionally expressed, is sovereign.

While the Constitution protects the rights of the humblest citizen in time of peace, in time of war it calls into action. and concentrates all the physical resources of the country against a public enemy, by evoking the war powers of the Constitution as now interpreted by the ablest statesmen and most learned jurists of the Republic.

The trial of the Constitution has thus far been a triumphant success. It has passed successfully through the terrible trial of the great civil war, and thus far has stood the still more fearful ordeal to which it has been subjected since the martyrdom of Lincoln. What dangers it will encounter in the immediate future, what new perils arising from the obstinacy, temper, treachery, or ambition of rulers, none can clearly foresee. But those who, during the last six eventful years, have traced in all our national affairs the guiding, overruling hand of Almighty God, ofttimes bringing good out of apparent evil; those who have watched the generous patriotism, and the instinctive wisdom, sagacity and good sense, and the sublime love of country and of liberty which have marked the conduct of the American people, will "never despair of the Republic." God and the people will save our country, in spite of the wickedness of traitors and the treachery of rulers.

[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]
« PrejšnjaNaprej »