656 



PUBLIC DOCUMENTS. 



resolution of the saine month, the dignity, equality, 

 and rights of such States (the insurrection ended) 

 were not to be held, in any respect, impaired. The 

 several proclamations of amnesty, issued by Mr. 

 Lincoln and his successor, under the authority of 

 Congress, are also inconsistent with the idea that the 

 parties included within them are not to be held in 

 the future restored to all rights belonging to them as 

 citizens of their respective States. A power to par- 

 don is a power to restore the offender to the con- 

 dition in which he was before the date of the offence 

 pardoned. 



It is now settled that a pardon removes not only 

 the punishment, but all legal disabilities consequent 

 on the crime. (7 Bac. A. B., Tit. Par.) Bishop on 

 Criminal Law (vol. i., p. 713) states the same doc- 

 trine. The amnesties so declared would be but false 

 pretences if they were, as now held, to leave the par- 

 ties who have availed themselves of them in almost 

 every particular in the condition they would have 

 been in if they had rejected them. Such a result, it 

 is submitted, would be a foul blot on the good name 

 of the nation. Upon the whole, therefore, in the 

 present state of the country, the excitement which 

 exists, and which may mislead Legislatures already 

 elected, we think that the mature sense of the peo- 

 ple is not likely to be ascertained on the subject of 

 the proposed amendment bv its submission to exist- 

 ing State Legislatures. If it should be done at all, 

 the submission should either be to Legislatures here- 

 after to be elected or to conventions of the people 

 chosen for the purpose. Congress may select either 

 mode, but they have selected neither. It may be 

 submitted to Legislatures already in existence whose 

 members were heretofore elected with no view to the 

 consideration of such a measure. And it may con- 

 sequently be adopted, though a majority of the peo- 

 ple of the States disapprove of it. In this respect, 

 if there were no other objections to it, we think it 

 most objectionable. Whether regard be had to the 

 nature or the terms of the Constitution, or to the 

 legislation of Congress during the insurrection, or 

 to the course of the judicial department, or to the 

 conduct of the Executive, the undersigned confident- 

 ly submit that the Southern States are States in the 

 Union, and entitled to every right and privilege be- 

 longing to the other States. If any portion of their 

 citizens be disloyal, or are not able to take any oath 

 of office that has been or may be constitutionally 

 prescribed, is a question irrespective of the right of 

 the States to be represented. Against the danger, 

 whatever that may be, of the admission of disloyal 

 or disqualified members into the Senate or House, it 

 is in the power of each branch to provide against by 

 refusing such admission. Each by the Constitution 

 is made the judge of the elections, returns, and qual- 

 ifications of its own members. No other depart- 

 ment can interfere with it. Its decision includes all 

 others. The only correction when error is committed 

 consists in the responsibility of the members to the 

 people. But it is believed by the undersigned to be 

 the clear duty of each House to admit any Senator or 

 Kepresentative who has been elected according to the 

 constitutional laws of the State, and who is able and 

 willing to subscribe to the oath required by consti- 

 tutional law. 



It is conceded by the majority that " it would un- 

 doubtedly be competent for Congress to waive all 

 formalities and to admit those Confederate States at 

 once, trusting that time and experience would set all 

 things right." It is not, therefore, owing to a want 

 of constitutional power that it is not done. It is not 

 because such States are not States with republican 

 forms of government. The exclusion must, there- 

 fore, rest on considerations of safety or expediency 

 alone. The first, that of safety, we have already 

 considered, and as we think proved it to be without 

 foundation. Is there any ground for the latter, ex- 

 pediency ? We think not. On the contrary, in our 

 judgment, their admission is called for by the clear- 



est expediency. Those States include a territorial 

 area of 850,000 square miles, an area larger than that 

 of five of the leading nations of Europe. They have 

 a coast line of 3,000 miles, with an internal water 

 line, including the Mississippi, of about 36, 000 miles. 

 Their agricultural products in 1850 were about 

 $360,000,000, in value, and their population 9,604,- 

 656. Their staple productions are of immense and 

 growing importance, and are almost peculiar to that 

 region. That the North is deeply interested in hav- 

 ing such a country and people restored to all the 

 rights and privileges that the Constitution affords, 

 no sane man, not blinded by mere party consider- 

 ations, or not a victim of disordering prejudice, can 

 for a moment doubt. Such a restoration is also ne- 

 cessary to the peace of the country. It is not only 

 important, but vital to the potential wealth of which 

 that section of the country is capable, that can- 

 not otherwise be fully developed. Every hour of il- 

 legal political restraint, every hour the possession of 

 the rights the Constitution gives is denied, is not 

 only in a political, but a material sense, of great in- 

 jury to the North as well as to the South. The 

 Southern planter works for bis Northern brethren 

 as well as for himself. His labors heretofore in- 

 ured as much, if not more, to their advantage than 

 to his. Whilst harmony in the past between the 

 sections gave to the whole a prosperity, a power, 

 and a renown of which every citizen had reason to 

 be proud, the restoration of "such harmony will im- 

 measurably increase them all. Can it, will it be 

 restored as long as the South is kept in political 

 and dishonoring bondage? And can it not, will it 

 not be restored by an opposite policy by admit- 

 ting her to all the rights of the Constitution, and 

 by dealing with her citizens as equals and as broth- 

 ers, not as inferiors or enemies? Such a course as 

 this will, we are certain, soon be seen to bind 

 them heart and soul to the Union, and inspire them 

 with confidence in its Government by making them 

 feel that all enmity is forgotten, and that justice is 

 being done to them. The result of such a policy, 

 we believe, will at once make us in very truth one 

 people, as happ.y, as prosperous, and as powerful as 

 ever existed in the tide of time; whilst its opposite 

 cannot fail to keep us divided, injuriously affect 

 the particular and general welfare of citizens and 

 government, and, if long persisted in, result in dan- 

 ger to the nation. In the words of an eminent Brit- 

 ish Whig statesman, now no more: "A free consti- 

 tution and large exclusions from its benefits cannot 

 subsist together; the constitution will destroy them, 

 or they will destroy the constitution." It is hoped 

 that, heeding the warning, we will guard against 

 the peril by removing the cause. 



The undersigned have not thought it necessary 

 to examine into the legality of the measures adopted, 

 either by the late or the present President, for the 

 restoration of the Southern States. It is sufficient 

 for their purpose to say. that, if those of President 

 Johnson were not justified by the Constitution, the 

 same may, at least, be said of those of his prede- 

 cessor. 



We deem such an examination to be unnecessary, 

 because, however it might result, the people of the 

 several States, who possessed, as we have before 

 said, the exclusive right to decide for themselves 

 what constitutions they should adopt, have adopted 

 those under which they respectively live. The mo- 

 tives of neither President, however, whether the 

 measures are legal or not, are liable to censure. 

 The sole object of each was to effect a complete 

 and early Union of all the States; to make the 

 General Government, as it did at first, embrace all, 

 and to extend its authority, and secure its privi- 

 leges and blessings to all alike. The purity of mo- 

 tive of President Johnson in this particular, as was 

 to have been expected, is admitted by the majority 

 of the committee to be beyond doubt. For what- 

 ever was their opinion of the unconstitutiona' ; tv 



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