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O rJ
WHERE ARE THEY I
v.'' ;> are they with whom 1 started,
41 i awlling o'er life's joyful way ;
l u-i S have vanished since we parted,
I ..in here but where are they ?
blissful hours that blest us,
1> iho friends that once caress'd ns—
■ i>ni friends that fondly pn.ss'd us,
Where are they ?
j
the early crystal dawning,
ieral ls in a glorious day ;
was life's enraptured morning,
j lhight with Hope's delusive ray ;
Scenes of Heav'nly brightness seeming—
Scenes with fadeless lustre gleaming—
Lit with smiles of Beauty beaming,
Where arc they ?
I.\s the stars in clustering bands,
- tiy smiling, smoothly roll;
- ~ith clasped hearts and hands,
fall of bliss we sought the goal:
IT .sine's radiant sky was o'er us,
Hope on gilded pinions bore us,
Levi in angel guise before us,
Woo'd the soul.
As the streamlets dancing by,
Joyful ever— ever sings ;
A .rystil'Devening sky,
GeL sof auty ever brings;
they -in bright appearing—
Evr glowing —ever cheering,
Y.'r t our As in love endearing,
Life the spring.
Tli* y have gone whose hearts were lightest;
They to whom I fondly clung,
TI. y ;L >so buoyant hopes were brightest,
They who sweetest smiled and sung ;
i'„hy forms in grace arrayed,
' :.s where Beauty blushing played,
i, s where Love his conquests made,
Hearts among.
■ h! why, this mournful feeling,
V.,iy siiould tears embittering flow?
. u silent swiftness ste ding,
: where bowers of glory grow ?
..ere, I'll meet the buoyunt hearted,
I cose with whom in life I started—
-1 - • with whom I weeping parted,
] Long ago !
I" . ut Jolntson and his Accomplices.
if ,c U'autic Monthly for November,)
J.'itxsoN has dealt the most
all blows to the respectability of
"ion which rejoices in his name.—
1 the political Pecksniffs and
a ps contrived so to manage the
. C nvo-ution at Philadelphia that it
\ . .* ol the proprieties of intrigue
j -uh : of the decencies ol dishonesty,
> ; commander-in-chief of the combi
'k tiie field in person, with the iu
u 1 carrying the country by assault.
• dive point was the grave of Duug-
CII became, by the time he arrived,
ffave also of his own reputation and
[■< •of his partisans. His speeches
'*■**■ route were a volcanic outbreak of
j -ui'.ty, conceit, bombast, scurrility, ig
■ , insolence, brutality, and balder
-1 - Screams of laughter, cries of dis-
Slashings of shame, were the various
I 7 a.scs of the nation he disgraced to
■ ira.agues of this leader of American
vatisui." Never before did the
Siice in the gift of the people appear
; ■ *r an object of human ambition as
Andrew Johnson made it an eminence
| !i to exhibit inability to behave and
| -j'Tcity to reason. His low cunning
! spired with his devouring egotism to
I iiim throw off all the restraints of uf
-1 decorum, in the expectation that he
lind duplicates of himself in the
*: ' ! .* he addressed, and that mob difl'used
i -rdly sympathize with mob imper
• ! Never was blustering demago
-1 by a distempered sense of self-im
n.cu into a more fatal error. Not only
• great body of the people mortified
gnanl, but even his " satraps and
| i :nts," even the shrewd politicians—
• its of an Accident and shadows of a
—wh>> had labored so hard at Philfe
•nia to weave a cloak of plausibilities
•ver his usurpations, shivered with ap
itension or tingled with shame as they
i the reports ot tlieir master's impolitic
•1 ignominious abandonment of dignity
i decency in his addresses to the people
d-tempted alterrately to bully and ca-
Tiiat a man tlius self-exposed as un
i thy of high trust should have had the
to expect that intelligent constituen
> would send to Congress men pledged
support Ats policy and his measures ap
'■an-d for the time to be as pitiable a spec
of human delusion as it was anexusp-
I >t ,g example of human impudence.
: •'* the least extraordinary peculiarity
| : these addresses from the stump was the
1 - 1 protuberance they exhibited of the
al pronoun In Mr. Johnson's speech,
1 " resembles the geometer's descrip
infinity, having " its centre every -
| •' and its circumference nowhere."—
the many kinds of egotism in which
pi nee is prolific, it may be difficult
: '>-tt-n on the particular one which is
Id detestably or most laughable ; but it
:i! - to us that when his arrogance apes
; >tv it is deserving, perhaps, of an in
■■''f degree of scorn or derision than
it riots in bravado. The most offen
l'art which he plays in public is tiiat ot
•Uinble individual," bragging of the
s of his origin, hinting of thegreat
• - which could alone have lilted him to
aunt exalted station, and represent-
E - GOODRICH, I^ixblisliei-.
VOLUME XXVII.
ing himself as so satiated with the sweets
ol unsought power as to be indifferent to
its honor. Ambition is not for him, for am
bition aspires ; and what object lias he to
aspiit to? From his contented mediocrity
as alderman of a village, the people have
insisted on elevating him from one pinnacle
of greatness to another, until they have at
last made him President of the United
States. He might have been Dictator hail
he pleased ; but what, to* a man wearied
with authority and dignity, would dictator
ship be worth ? If he is proud of anything
it is ot the tailor's bench, from which he
started. He would have everybody under
stand that he is humble—thoroughly hum
ble. Is this caricature? No; it is'im
possible to caricature Andrew Johnson
when be mounts his high horse of humility
and becomes a sort of cross between Uriah
Lieop and Josiuh Bounderby, of Coketown.
Indeed, it is only by quoting Dickens' des
cription of the latter personage that we
have anything which fairly matches the
traits suggested by some statements in the
Pi i sident's speeches. " A big, loud man,"
says the humorist, "with a stare and a
metallic laugh. A man made out of coarse
material, which seemed to have been stret
ched to make so much of him. A man with
! i great puffed head and forehead, swelled
veins in his temples, and such a strained
i skin to his face that it seemed to hold ids
! eyes open and lift his eyebrows up. A man
with a pervading appe irauce on him of be
ing inflated like a ha! oon, and ready to
start. A man who could never sufficiently
vaunt himself a self-made man. A man
who was continually proclaiming, through
that brassy speaking-trumpet of a voice of
his, his old ignorance and his old poverty.
A man who was the bully ol humility."
If we turn from the moral and personal
to the mental characteristics of Mr. John
son's speeches, we find that Ids brain is to
be classed with notable cases of arrested
development. He has strong forces in his
nature, but in their outlet through his mind
they are dissipated into a confusing clatter
of unrelated thoughts and inapplicable
phrases. He seems to possess neither the
power nor the perception of coherent think
ing and logical arrangement. He does not
appear, to be aware that prepossessions are
not proofs, that assertions are not argu
ments, that the proper method to answer an
objection is not to repeat the proposition
against which the objection was directed,
that the proper method of unfolding a sub
ject is not to make the successive state
ments a series of contradictions. Indeed,
he seems to have a thoroughly annualized
intellect, destitute of the notion of rela- i
tious, with ideas which are but the form of j
determinations, and which derive their j
torce, not from reason, but from will. With j
an individuality thus strong even to fierce- j
ness, but which ha* not been developed in j
the mental region, and which the least gust
of passion intellectually upsets, he is inc. -
pabie of looking at anything out of rela
tions to himself—of regarding it from that
neutral ground which is the condition of in
telligent discussion between opposing
minds. In truth, he makes a virtue of be
ing insensible to the evidence of facts and
the deductions of reason, proclaiming to
all the world that he has taken his position
that lie will never swerve from it, and that
all statements and arguments intended to
shake his resolves are imp rtineuces, indi
cating that their authors are Radicals and
cut mies of the country. lie is never wea
ry of vaunting his firmness, and firmness
he doubtless has,!.hc firmness of at least a
score of mules ; but event-* have sin wn
that it is a different kind of firmness from
that which keeps a statesman firm to his
principles, a political leader to ids pledges,
a gentleman to his word. Amid all changes
of opinion, he has been conscious of un
changed v. ill, and the intellectual element
f unis so small a portion of his being, that,
when he challenged "the man, woman, or
child to come forward " and convict him of
inconstancy to his professions, he knew
that, however it might be with the rest of
mankind, he would himself be unconvinced
by any evidence which the said man or wo
man, or child might adduce. Again, when
he was askt d by one of his audience why
he dia not hang Jeff. Davis, lie retorted by
exclaiming : " Why don't you ask me why
1 have not hanged Stevens and I Fen
ded Phillips ? They are as much traitors
as Davis." And we are almost charitable
enough to suppose that lie saw no differ
ence between the moral or legal treason of
the man who for four years hud waged op
en war against the Government of the Uni
ted States, and the men who for one year
had sharply criticized the acts and utter
ances oi Andrew Johnson. It is not to be
expected that nice distinctions will be made
by a magistrate who is in the habit of de
nying indisputable facts with the fury of a
pugilist who has received a personal af
front, and of announcing demonstrated fal
lacies with the "imperturbable serenity of a
| philosopher proclaiming the fundam ntal
i laws of human belief. His train is entire
| ly ridden by his will, and of all the public
j men in the country its official In-ad is the
! one whose opinion carries with it the least
j intellectual weight. It is to tiie credit of
; our institutions and our ststemen that the
man least qualified by largeness of mind
and moderation of temper to exorcise un
controlled power should be the man who
aspired to usurp it. The constitutional in
stinct in the blood and the constitutional
principle in the brain of our real statesmen
preserve them from the folly and guilt of
setting themselves up as imitative of Cte
ears and Napoleons the moment they are
trusted with a little delegated power.
Still we are told that, with all his defects,
Andrew Johnson is to be honored and sup
i ported as a "conservative" President en
gaged in a contest with a " Radical " Con
gress ! It happens, however, that the two
persons who specially represent Congress
in this struggle are Senators Trumbull and
Fesseuden. Senator Trumbull is the auth
or of the two important measures which the
, President vetoed ; Senator Fesseuden is
! the chairman and organ of the Committee
i o{ Fifteen, which the President anathema
tizes. Now we desire to do justice to the
gravity of bice which the partisans of Mr.
i Johnson preserve in announcing their most
j absurd propositions, and especially do we
! commend their command of countenance
' while it is their privilege to contrast the
j wild notions and violent sp. <eh of such
! lawless Radicals as the Senator from 111 i
| nois and the Senator from Main- with the
, balanced judgment and moderate temper"
of such a pattern conservative as the Pres-
TOYVANDA, BRADFORD COUNTY, PA., NOVEMBER 1,1866.
ident ol the United States. The contrast
prompts ideas so irresistibly ludicrous that
to keep one's risibilities under austere con
trol while instituting it argues a self-com
mand almost miraculous.
Andrew Johirson, however, such as he is
in heart, intellect, will, and speech, is the
recognized leaner ot his party, and demands
that the great mass of his partisans shall
serve him, not merely by prostration of
body, but by prostration of mind. It is the
hard duty of Lis more intimate associates
to translate hie broken utterance from Andy
Johnaoneae into constitutional phrase, to
give these versions some show of logical
arrangement, and to carry out, as best they
may, their own objects, while professing
boundless devotion to his. By a sophisti
cal process of developing his rude notions,
they often leait him to conclusions which he
had not foreseen, but which they induce him
to make his own, not by a fruitless eflort to
quicken his mind into following the steps
of their reasoning, but by stimulating bis
passions to the point of adopting its re
sult s. They tiruß become'parasites in ord
er that they may become powers, and their
interests make them particularly ruthless
in tli i; dealings with their master's cou
K'.stency. Their relation to him, if they
wouid bluntly express it, might be indica
ted in this brief formula : "We will adore
yon m order that you may obey us."
The trouble with these politicians is, that
they cannot tie the President's tongue as
they tied the tongues of the eminent per
sonages they invited from all portions of
the country to .keep silent at their great
conventional Philadelphia. That conven
tion was a master-piece of cunning politi
cal management ; but its address and reso
lutions were hardly laid at Mr. Johnson's
feet, when, in his exultation, he blurted out
that unfortunate remark about " u body
called, or which assumed to be, the Con
gress of the United States," which, it ap
pears, " we have seen hanging on the verge
of the Government." Now all this was in
the address of the convention, but it was
not so brutally worded, nor so calculated
to appal those timid supporters of the John
son party who thought, in their innocence,
that the obj< ct of the Philadelphia meeting
was to heal the wounds of civil war, and
not to lay down a programme by which it
might be reopened. Turning, then, from
Mr. Johnson to the manifesto of his politi
cal supporters, let us see what additions it
makes to political wisdom, and what guar
antees it affords for future peace. Wo
shall not discriminate between insurgent
States and individual insurgents, because,
when individual insurgents are so over
whelmingly strong that they carry their
States with them, or when States are so
overwhelmingly strong that they force in
dividuals to be insurgents, it appears to be
needless. The terms are often used inter
changeably in the address, for the conven
tion was so largely composed of individual J
insurgents that it was important to vary a
little the charge that they usurped State I
powers with the qualification that they
obeyed the powers they usurped. At the
South, individual insurgents constitute the j
btate when they determine to rebel, and
obey it when they desire to be pardoned.
An identical thing cannot be altered by
giving it two names.
The principle which runs through the
Philadelphia address is that insurgent
States recover their former rights under
the Constitution by the mere fact of sub
mission. This is equivalent to saying that
insurgent States incurred no guilt in rebel
lion. But States cannot become insurgent
unh ss the authorities of such States com
mit perjury and treason, and their people
become rebels and public enemies. Per
jury, treason, and rebellion are commonly
held to he crimes ; and who ever heard be
fore that criminals were restored to all the
rights of honest citizens by the mere fact
of their arrest ?
The doctrine, moreover, is a worse here
sy than that of secession ; for secession
implies that seceded States, being out of
the Union, can plainly only be brought back
by conquest, and on such terms as the vic
tors may choose to impose. No candid
Southern rebel, who believes that his State
seceded and that he acted under compe
tent authority when he took up arms against
the United States, can have the effrontery
to affirm that he had inherent rights of cit
izenship in the " foreign country " against
which he plotted and fought for four years.
The so-called " right" of secession was
claimed by the South as a constitutional
right, to be peaceably exercised, but it pass
ed into the broader and more generally in
ttdligibh "right" of revolution when it
had to be sustained by war ; and the con
dition of a defeated revolutionist is certain
ly not that of a qualified voter in the na
tion against which he revolted. But if iu
eurgcnt States recover their former rights
and privileges when they submit to superi
or force, there is no reason why armed re
bellion should not be as common as local
discontent. We have on this principle sac
rificed thirty-five hundred millions of dol
lars and three hundred thousand lives, ouly
to bring the insurgent States into just those
" practical relations to the Union " which
will enable us to sacrifice thirty-five hun
dred millions of dollars more, and three
hundred thousand more lives, when it suits
the passions aud caprices of those States
to rebel again. Whatever they may do in
the way of disturbing the peace of the
country, they can never, it seems, forfeit
their rights and privileges under the Con
stitution. Even if everybody was posi
tively certain that there would be a new
rebellion in ten years, unless conditions of
representation were exacted of the South,
we still, according to the doctrine of the
.Johnsonian jurists, would be coustitutional
i ly impotent to exact them, because insur
! gent States recover unconditioned rights
• to representation by the mere fact of their
i submitting to the power they cau uo loug
ler resist. The acceptauce of this principle
i would make insurrection the chronic dis
| ease of our political system. War would
! follow war, until nearly all the wealth of
| the country was squandered, and nearly all
the inhabitants exterminated. Mr. John
son's prophetic vision of that Paradise of
constitutionalism shadowed forth in his ex
clamation that he would staud by the Cou
| stitution, though all around hiin should
! perish, would be measurably realized ; and
among the ruins of the nation a few hag
| gard and ragged pedants would be left to
j drone out eulogies on " the glorious Con
stitution " which had survived uuharmed
the auarchy, poverty, and depopulation it
REGARDLESS OF DENUNCIATION FROM ANY QUARTER.
had produced. Au interpretation of the
Constitution which thus makes it the shield
of treason and the destroyer of civilization
must he false both to fact and sense. The
fratners of that instrument were not idiots;
yet idiots they would certainly have been
if they had put into it a clause declaring
j " that no State, or combination of States,
| which may at any time choose to get up au
i armed attempt to overthrow the Govern-
J meut established by this Constitution, and
be defeated in the attempt, shall forfeit any
of the privileges granted by this instru
ment to loyal States." But an interpreta
| tion of the Constitution which can be con
ceived of as forming a possible part of it
only by impeaching the sanity of its fram
ers cannot be an inteipretati n which the
American people are morally bound to risk
ruin to support.
But even if we should be wild enough to
admit the Johnsonian principle respecting
insurgent States, the question conies up as
to the identity of the States now demand
ing representation with the States whose
rights of representation are affirmed to
| have been only suspended during their re
bellion. The fact would seem to be that
these reconstructed States are merely the
creations of the executive branch of the
Government, with every organic bond hope
lessly cut which connected them with the
| old State governments and constitutions,
ihey have only the names of the States
they pretend to be. Before the rebellion
they had a legal people ; when Mr. John
son took hold of them they had nothing but
a disorganized population. Gut oi this
population he by his own will created a
people on the principle, we must suppose,
of natural selection. Now, to decide who
are the people of a State is to create its
i very foundations —to begin anew iu the
the most comprehensive sense of the word;
| tor the being of a State is more in its peo
ple, that is, in the persons selected from its
I inhabitants to be the depositaries of its po
| litica! power, than it is in its geographical
boundaries and area. Over this people
thus constituted by himself Mr. Johnson
set Provisional Governors nominated by
himself. These Governors called popular
conventions, whose members were elected
by the votes of those to whom Mr. John
son had given the right of suffrage ; and
these conventions proceeded to do what
Mr. Johnson dictated. Everywhere Mr.
Johnson ; nowhere the assumed rights of
the States ! North Carolina was one of
these creations ; and North Carolina,
through the lips of its Chief Justice, has
already decided that Mr. Johnson was au
unauthorized intruder and his work a nulli
ty; and even Mr. Johnson's "people" of North
Carolina have rejected lhe constitution
framed by Mr. Johnson's convention. Other
rebel communities will doubtless repudiate
his work as soon as they can dispense with
his assistance. But whatever may be the
condition of these new Johnsonian States, j
they are certainly not States which can j
" recover " rights which existed previous to
their creation. The date of their birth is to
be reckoned, not from any year previous to
the ret >ellion, but from the year which fol !
lowed its suppression. Itrnay, in old times !
have been a politic trick of shrewd politi- \
cians to involve the fonudations of States
in the mists of a mythical antiquity, but
we happily live in an historical period, and
there is something peculiarily stupid or pe
culiarly impudent in the attempt of the
publicits of the Philadelphia convention to
ignore the origins of political societies, for
which, alter they have obtained a certain 1
degree of organization, they claim such j
eminent traditional rights and privileges, i
Respectable as these States may be as in
fant phenomena, it, will not do to Methusah
ize them too recklessly, or assert their
equality in muscle and brawn with giants
full grown.
It is evident from the nature of the case
that Mr. Johnson s labors were purely ex
perimental and provisional, and needed the
endorsement of Congress to be of any force.
The only department of the Government
constitutionally capable to admit new states
or rehabilitate insurgent ones is the legis
lative. When the Executive not only took
the initiative in reconstruction, but assum
ed to have completed it; when he present
ed his States to Congress as the equals of
the States represented in that body ; when
lie asserted that the delegates from his
States should have the right of sitting and
voting in the Legislature whose business
it was to decide on their right to admis
sion ; when, in short, he demanded that
criminals at the bar should have seats on
the bench, and an equal voice with the
judges in deciding on their own case, the
effrontery of Executive pretension went be
yond all bounds of congressional endurance.
The real difference at first was not on the
question of imposing conditions—for the
President had notoriously imposed them
himself—but on the question whether or
not additional conditions were necessary to
secure the public safety. The President,
with that facility " in turning his back on
himself" with all other logical gymnasts
had pronounced an impossible feat, then
boldly took the ground that, being satisfied
with the conditions lie had himself exacted,
ths exaction of conditions was unconstitu
tional. To sustain this curious proposition
he adduced no constitutional arguments,
but lie left various copies of the Constitu
tion in each of the crowds he recently ad
dressed, with the trust, we suppose, that
somebody might be fortunate enough to
find in that instrument the clause which
supported his theory. Mr. Johnson, how
ever, though the most consequential of in
dividuals, is the most inconsequential of
reasoners ; every proposition which is evi
dent to himself he considers to fulfil the
definition of a sell-evident proposition ; but
I his supporters at Philadelphia must have
! known that in affirming that insurgent
i States recover their former rights by the
| fact of submission, they were arraigning
! the conduct of their leader, who had noto
i riously violated those " rights." They took
up his work at a certain stage, and then,
| with that as a basis, they affirmed a gen
j eral proposition about insurgent States
which, bad it been complied with by the
; President, would have lett them no founda
tion at all ; for the States about which they
so glibly generalized would have had no
| show of organized governments. The pre
mines of their argument were obtained by
I the violation of its conclusion ; they infer
red from what was a negation of their in
ference, and deduced from what was a
i death-blow to their deduction.
It is easy enough to understand why the
Johnson convention asserted the equality
of the Johuson reconstructions of States
with the States now represented in Con
gress. The object was to give some ap
pearance of legality to a contemplated act
of arbitrary power, and the principle that
insurgent States recover all tbeir old rights
by the fact of submission was invented in
order to cover the case. Mr Johnson now
intends, by the admission of his partisans,
to attempt a coup d'etat on the assembling
of the Fortieth Congress, in caße seventy
one members of tin* House of Representa
tives, favor .ble to his policy, are chosen,
in the elections of this autumn, from the
twenty-six loyal States. These, with the
fifty Southern delegates, would constitute
a quorum ot the house ; and the remaining
hundred aud nineteen members are, in the
President's favorite phrase, "to be kicked
out" from that " verge " of the govern
ment on which they now are said to be
" hanging." The question, therefore, wheth
er Congress, as it is at present constituted,
is a body constitutionally competent to
legislate for the whole country, is the most
important of all practical questions. Let
us see how the case stands.
The Constitution, ratified by the people
of all the States, establishes a government
of sovereign powers supreme over the whole
land, and the people of no State can rightly
pass from under its authority except by the
consent of the people o* ail the States,with
whom it is bound by the most solemn and
binding of contracts. The rebel States broke
in fact the contract they could not break in
ri'jht. Assembled in conventions of their
people,they passed ordinances of secession,
withdrew their Senators and Representa
tives from Congress, and began the war by
assailing a iurt of the United States. The
secessionists had trusted to the silence of
the Constitution in relation to the act they
performed. A State in the American Union,
as distinguished from a territory, is consti
tutionally a part of the Government to
which it owes allegiance, and the seceded
States had refused to be parts of the Gov
ernment,and had forsworn their allegiance.
By the Constitution, the United States, in
cases of "domestic violence" in a Si ate, is
to intcif re, "on application of the Legisla
ture, or of the Executive,when the Legisla
ture cannot be convened." But iu this case
legislatures, executives, conventions of the
people, were all violators of the domestic
peace, and of course made no application
for interference. By the Constitution, Con
gress is empowered to suppress insurrec
tions ; but this might be supposed to mean
insurrections like Shay's rebellion in Mas
sacims. tt and the Whiskey insurrection in
Pennsylvania, aad not to cover the action
of States seceding irom the Congress which
is thus empowered. The seceders, there
fore, felt somewhat as did the absconding
James II when he flung the great seal into
the Thames, and thought he had stopped
the machinery of the English government.
Mr. Buchanan, then President of the Uni
ted States, admitted at once that the seces
sionists had done their work in such away
that, though they had done wrong,the Gov
ernment was powerless to compel them to
do right. And here the matter should have
rested, if the Government established by
the Constitution was such a Government as
Mr. Johnson's supporters now declare it to
be If it is impotent to prescribe terms of
peace in relatiou to insurgent States, it is
certainly impotent to make war on insur
gent States. If insurgent States recover
their former constitutional rights in laying
down their arms, then there was no crimi
nality in their taking them up ; and if there
was no criminality m their taking them up,
then the United States was criminal in the
war by which they were forced to iay them
down. On this theory we have a govern
ment incompct ut to legislate for insurgent
States, because lacking their representa
tives, waging against them a cruel and un
just war. And this is the real theory of
the defeated rebels and Copperheads who
formed the great mass of the delegates to
the Johnson convention. Should they get
into power, they would feel themselves log
ically justified in annulling,not only all the
acts of the "Rump Congress" since they
submitted, but all the acts of the Rump
Congresses during the time they had a Con
federate Congress of their own. They may
deny that this is their intention : but what
intention to forego the exercise of an as
sumed right, held by those who are out of
power, can be supposed capable of limiting
their action when they are in ?
But if the United States is a government
having legitimate rights of sovereignty con
ferred upon it by the people of all the States,
and if, consequently, the attempted seces
sion of the people of one or more States
only makes theui criminals, without impair
ing the sovereignty of the United States,
then the Government, with all its powers,
remains with the representatives of the loy
al people. By the very nature of govern
ment as government, the rights and privi
leges guaranteed to citizens are guaran
teed to loyal citizens ; the rights and priv
ileges guaranteed to States are guaranteed
to loyal States ; and loyal citizens and loy
al States are not such as profess a wnlling
uess to be loyal after having been utterly
worsted in an enterprise of gigantic disloy
alty. The organic unity and continuity of
the Government would be broken by the
return of disloyal citizens and rebel States
without their going through the process of
being restored by the action of the Govern
ment they had attempted to subvert ; and
the power to restore carries with it the
power to decide on the terms of restoration.
And when we speak of the Government we
are not courtly enough to mean by the ex
pression simply its executive branch. The
question of admitting an implicity of resto
ring States, and of deciding whether or not
I States have a republican form of govern
' ment, are matters left by the Constitution
jto the discretion of Congress. As to the
rebel States now claiming representation,
they have succumbed, thoroughly exhaus
ted, iu one of the costliest and bloodiest
wars in the history of the world—a war
| which tasked the resources of the United
! States more than they would have beeu
: tasked with a war with all the great Pow-
I ers of Europe combined—a war which, in
18t>2, had assumed such proportions that
the Supreme Court decided that it gave the
United States the same rights and privi
leges which the Government might exer
cise in the case of a national and foreign
war. The inhabitants of the insurgent
States being thus judicially declared pub
lic enemies as well as rebels, there wonld
seem to be no doubt at all that the victo*
#3 per Annum, in Advance
J rious close of actual hostilities could not
deprive the Government of the power of
deciding on the terms of peace with public
enemies. The Government of the United
States found the insurgent States thorough
ly revolutionized and disorganized, with no
State governments which could be recog
nized without recognizing the validity of
treason, and without the power or right to
take even the initial steps for State reorg
anization. They were practically out of
the Union as States ; their State govern
ments had lapsed ; their population was
composed of rebels and public enemies, by
the decision of the Supreme Court. Under
such circumstances, how the Commander
in-Chief, under Congress, of the forces of
the United States, could recreate these de
funct States, and make it mandatory on
Congress to receive their delegates, has al
ways appeared to us one of those mysteries
of unreason which require faculties either
above or below humanity to accept. In
addition to this fundamental objection,there
was the further one that almost all of the
delegates were rebels presidentially par
doned into "loyal men," were elected with
the idea of forcing Congress to repeal the
test-oath, and were incapaciated to be leg
islators even if they had been sent from
loyal States. The few who were loyal men
in the sense that they had not served the
rebel government were still palpably elec
ted by constituents who had ; and the char
acter of the constituency is as legitimate a
subject of congressional inquiry as the
character of the representative.
It not being true, then, that the twenty
two thousand ioyai voters who placed Air.
Johnson in office, and whom he betrayed,
have no meaus by their representatives in
Congress to exert a controlling power in
the reconstruction of the rebel communities,
the question comes up as to the conditions
which Congress has imposed. It always
appeared to us that the true measure of
conciliation, of security, of mercy,of justice,
was one which would combine the princi
ple of universal amnesty, or an amnesty
nearly universal, with that of universal, or
at least of impartial suffrage. In regard
to amnesty, the amendment to the Consti
tution which Congress has passed disquali
fies no rebels from voting,and only disqual
ifies them from holding office when they
have happened to add perjury to treason.
In regard to suffrage, it makes it for the
political interest of the South to be just to
its colored citizens, by basing representa
tion on voters, and not on population, and
thus places the indulgence of class preju
dices and hatreds under the penalty of a
corresponding loss of a political power in
the Electoral College and the national
House of Representatives. If the rebel
States should be restored without this
amendment becoming a part of the Consti
tution, then the recent slave States will
have thirty Presidential Electors and thirty
members of the House of Representatives
in virtue of a population they disfranchise,
and the vote of a rebel white in South Car
olina will carry with it more than double
the power of a loyal white in Massachu
setts or Ohio. The only ground on which
this disparity can be defended is, that as
"one Southerner is more than a match fur
two Yankees," he has an inherent, contin
uous, unconditioned right to have this supe
riority recognized at the ballot-box. In
deed, the injustice of this is so monstrous
that the Johnson orators find it more con
venient to decry all conditions of represen
tation than to meet the incontrovertible
reasons for exacting the condition which
bases representation on voters. Not to
make it a part of the Constitution would be,
in Mr. Shellabarger's vivid illustration, to
allow "that Lee's vote shouid have double
the elective power of Grant's ; Secures' dou
ble that of Farragut's ; Booth's—did he live
—double that of Lincoln's, his victim !"
It is also to be considered that these thir
ty votes would in all future sessions of Con
gress decide the fate of the most important
measures. In 1862 the Republicans, as
Congress is now constituted, only bad a
majority of twenty votes. In alliance with
the Northern Democratic party, the South,
with these thirty votes, might repeal the
civil rights bill, the principle of which is
embodied in the proposed amendment. It
might assume the rebel debt,which is repu
diated in that amendment. It might even
repudiate the Federal debt, which is affirm
ed in that amendment. We are so accus
tomed to look at the rebel debt as dead be
yond the power of resurrection as to for
get that it amounts, with the valuation of
the emancipated slaves, to some four thou
sand millions of dollars. If the South and
its Northern Democratic allies should come
into power,there is a strong probability that
a measure would be brought in to assume
at least a portion of this debt—say two
thousand millions. The Southern members
would be nearly a unit for assumption, and
the Northern Democratic members would
certainly be exposed to the most frightful
temptation that legislators ever had to re
sist. Suppose it were necessary to buy fif
ty members at a million of dollars a piece,
that sum would only be two and a half per
cent, of the whole. Suppose it were neces
sary to give them ten millipus a piece,even
that would only be a deduction of twenty
five per cent, from a claim worthless with
out their votes. The bribery might be con
ducted in such away as to elude discovery,
if not suspicion,and the measure would cer
tainly be trumpeted all over the North as
the grandest of all acts of statesmanlike
"conciliation," binding the south to the
Union in indissoluble bonds of interest.—
The amendment renders the conversion of
the rebel debt into the most enormous of all
corruption funds an impossibility.
But the character and necessity of the
amendment are too well understood to need
explanation, enforcement or defence. If it
or some more stringent one be not adopted,
the loyal people will be tricked out of the
fruits of the war they have waged at the
expense of such unexampled sacrifices of
treasure and blood. It never will be adop
ted unless it be practically made a condi
tion of the restoration of the rebel States ;
aud for the unconditional restoration of
those States the President,through his most
trusted supporters, has indicated his inten
tion to venture a coup d'etat. This threat
has failed doubly of its purpose. The tim
id, whom it was expected to frighten,it has
simply scared into the reception of the idea
that the only way to escape civil war is by
the election of over a hundred and twenty
Republican Representatives to the Fortieth
Congress. The courageous, whom it was
intended to defy, it has only exasperated
into more strenuous efforts against tho in
solent renegade who had the audacity to
make it. Everywhere in the loyal States
there is an uprising of the people only par
alleled by the grand uprising of 18(51. The
President's pian of reconstruction having
passed from a policy into a conspiracy, IDS
chief supporters are no v. not HO much his
partisans as his accomplices; and aga' > t
him and his accomplices the people will
this autumn indignantly record the most
overwhelming of verdicts.
SELF-CONQUEST.
The wisest of men, King Solomon, says,
"The beginning of strife is as when one let
teth out water." In some countries where
the shore is low, as in Holland, they raise
immense mounds, or dykes ot earth,to keep
out the waves of ocean. If there should be
the smallest breach in the dyke, the wat' r
begins to press from all parts towards the
opening ; and if not immediately stopped,
the sea overcomes all resistance,and sweeps
away the barriers, burying cities and villa
ges beneath the flood, and spreading mis
ery and ruin all around. "Therefore," speaks
Solomon again,""leave oil contention before
it be meddled with," —rather, before it in
"mingled together that is, before y in
spirits be joined in conflict, before you deal
out hard words against one another.
"Greater," says Solomon, "is ho that
ruleth his own spirit than he that taketh a
city." Courage and skill only are needed
in the one case ; but what eff orts,and above
all, what strength from God, to accomplish
the other ! Such conquests, however, may
and have been made, and that even by the
young. As an illustration, let me mention
how a little girl acted under circumstances
of provocation, and the victory which she
gained over herself.
Two little sisters—Frances about seven,
and Augusta about five years old—were as
happy as little girls could be, loving their
parents and each other dearly. Sometimes
however,as it happens with the best friends,
little differences would arise. On one of
those occasions, Frances, perceiving how
matters were tending, with a thoughtfui
ness, decision,and self-command surprising
in so young a child, said, "I am getting an
gry ; I had better go out of the room for a
few minutes." She acted immediately up
on her resolution, and left the room for a
short time. When she returned the storm
was hushed, and they went to their play as
happy as ever.
This is no imaginary story,but a tact,and
occurred just as it is related ; and it teach
es our young friends, nay, all of us, a most
useful lesson.
Were all children to act like the little
girl 1 have mentioned,how many sad scenes
would be avoided, and what happiness
! would spring up in youthful hearts from
self-conquest! There is this to encourage,
that just as bad habits grow in strength
the more they are yielded to, so each time
temper is overcome will strength be gained
for future conflict. Only remember, no ef
fort of your own can accomplish it without
the aid of God's Holy Spirit. The aid will
be given if you earnestly and devoutly seek
it. If parents, though sinful, know how to
give good things unto their children, how
much more shall your Father which is in
heaven give the Holy Spirit to them that
ask Him ?"
NUMBER 23.
DON'T LIKE MY BUSINESS-
There is no greater fallacy in the wori-1
than that entertained by many young nun
that 6ume pursuit in life can be found wh -i
ly suited to their tastes, whims,and faucie;.-.
This philosopher's stone can never be dis
covered, and every one vvno makes his liie
a search for it will be ruined. Much truth
is contained in the Irishman's rem uk :
"It is never aisy to work hard." Let,there
fore, the fact be always remembered by the
young, that no life-work can be found en
tirely agreeable to a man. Success always
lies at tbe top of a hill ; if we would react,
it, we can do so only by hard, persevering
effort, while beset with difficulties ol even
kind. Genius counts nothing in the battle
of life. Determined,obstinate perseverano
in one single channel is everything. Hence,
should any one of our young reader, be de
bating in his mind a cl.tinge of business,
imagining he has a genius for some other,
let him at once dismiss tin thought, as he
would a temptation to do evil. If you think
you made a mistake in cho> sing the purse i;
of profession you did, don't make another
by leaving it. Spend all your energies :.
working for and clinging io it,as you woui-i
to the life-boat that sustained you in ti.
midst of the ocean. If you leave it, it is
almost certain that you will go down ; but
if you cling to it, informing yourself about
it until you are its master, bending your
every energy to the work, success is cer
tain. Good, hard, honest effort, steadily
persevered in, will make your love for your
business or profession grow, since no one
should expect to reach a period when be
can feel that his life-work is just the one lie
could have done best, and like best. We
are allowed to see and feel the reughncs
in our own pathway,but not in others ; ye;
all have them.
PROFANITY. — Why will men take the name
of God in vain ? What possible advantage
is to be gained by it ? And yet iln. wan
ton, vulgar sin of profanity is evid-miij m
the increase. Oaths fall up a the ear .11
the cars and at the corners of streets. Tin
North American Review BUYS well : "There
are among us not a few who ieel that a
I simple assertion or plain stab meat t: ob
vious facts will pass for nothing, unless
they swear to its truth by all the nana sol
the Deity and biistei their lips v. it!, u.
variety of hot and sulphurous oaths. It' we
observe such persons very closely, v. e sh ii
generally find that the fierceness of their
profanity is an inverse ratio to the allium,e
of their ideas. We venture to affirm that
the profah'est men within the circle ol y. ur
knowledge, are afflicted with a chronic
weakness of the intellect. The utterance
of an oath, though it may prevent a vacum
in sound- is no indication of sense. It re
requires no genius to swear. The reckless
taking of sacred names in vain is as little
characteristic of true independence of
thought as it is of high moral culture. In
this breathing and beautiful world, filled,a
it were, with the presence of the Deity and
fragrant with its incense from a thou: . •!
altars of praise, it would be no severity
should we catch the spirit of reverent wor
shippers,and illustrate in ourselves the sen
timent that the "Christian is the highs .it
style of man."
GOOD ADVICE. — Some one say : " tin
let us tell you a stubborn truth 1 No
young woman ever looks so well io a t.ei--
sible young man, as when dressed in a
plain, neat, modest attire without
ornament about her person. She lot . s
then as though she possessed worth in hr
self, and needed no artificial rigging to i
hance her value. If a young woman would
t pend so much time in cultivating her
mind, training her temper, and eheris.i.g
kindness, meekness, mercy, and other good
qualities, as most of them do in extra dress
and ornaments, to increase their personal
charms, she would, at a glance, be known
among a thousand—her character would be
read in her countenance."