Author o \ HUB' "^ ..43.ib... Title Imprint 18—47372-8 «PO PRINTET) AT THE PUESS & TIHES OFFICE , NASHVIIXE. Browiilow Republicanism vs. Etlieridge Conservatism. ETHERIDGE'S RECORD EXPOSED. HE VOTES NO MORE MEN OR MONEY TO PUT DOWN THE REBELLION! Delivered at the State House, June Uh, 1867. By colonel W. K BILBO. Ladies and Gentlemen: It peeras that in the picture of iiation- ftl felicity which my soul had touched briglitest, I had too" fondly hoped that ere this from the dome of our Capitol would float the bannered insio;nia of an universal enfranchisen'ent — that like a beautiful iris of divine promise, it would have spanned with its heavenly hues our national firmament> embracing beneath its s:or;>:eous arch the child of every race and the reconciled citizens of every State — that tliestar of our no- ble State would have been the lirst in the Federal constellation, to rise in cloudless majesty over a land dedicated to the genius of an universal emancipa- tion — that bastard freedom would never again unfurl her fustian flag over a Re- public ot freemen. But alas! the smouldering fires of rebellion, relvindled in spirit and exasperated, have dissolv- ed this frost-work vision of bliss. O, that our beguiled citizens had not listened to the syren voice of the White House at Washington, but had accepted with true allegiance the inexorable logic of events. If so, even now the\'' ■would enjoy the inestimable birth-right privileges of American freemen — the se- lection of their own officers and the adoption of their own laws — would be- hold the disfranchised South redeemed, regenerated and disenthralled. What lover of his country can con- template the civil disfranchisement or enslavement of millions of his coun- trymen, white or black, for any length of time, without the most nppalling apprehensions? Who can advocate a system, for any length of time, that will spread its moral venom through every artery of the nation, and canker the very heart of the Republic — that extinguishes the imaiortal a-ipiratious of the soul, by closing every avenue of laudable ambi- tion — that represses all generous emu- lation of ancestral fame— that eternizes or immortalizes persecution — that invades and profanes the consecrated temple of female dignity, honor and chastity- that paralyzes the energies, and undermines the resources of the gov- ernment^that administers to the ve- nality of party, by making the hon- ors and emoluments of ofilce, the wages ot a relentless intolerance. Cannot loyalty be restored only bj^ civil disa- bility"? Cannot fraternal alfection be conciliated but by ignominious penal- ties, or constitutional liberty be main- tained but by individual degradation? Will civil disfranchisement degrade the poor African to the level of a brute, and yet elevate the Anglo-American to the altitude of an angel! Never; no, never, can civil liberty and human dig- nity be perpetuated by crawling amid purlieus of civil disfranchisement and. personal degradation. Their sacred sanctuary is throned in the highest heavenson Alpine heights.andcan alone be soared to by an eagle's pinion, or gazed at by his unflinching eye. In heaven's name, therefore, let us at once consume the last relic ot tlie past; its passions, prejudices and tierce animos- ities. Let us erase from our statute books, and obliterate from the archives of the nation every trace of tliose twin words of national dishonor and heart- rending mortitication— i?e6eZand Freed- men, and in their unhallowed space, let there beam refulgent in living light, that other word so dear to every patriot heart: that word which shall be the synonym of an enlightened freedom ; of a Christian philanthrophy; of an uni- versal emancipation— I mean an Ameri- can citizen. But this consummation, so devoutly desired by myself and every true Republican, is and has been alone thwarted by the malevolence and pol- icy of the so-called Conservative party. Republicans, you are the incarnation of the age — the sacred depositaries of those heaven-born truths tliat will lib- erate and ennoble the race, change the face of the globe, and reconcile man to his fellow liian and to his God. Let not the obstinacy of man, let not aspersion or prejudice" retard you in your career of imperishable glory. Remember that forms of government are upon parch- ment drawn, are inanimate, motionless and unproofressive — made for the peo- ple, and not the people for them. 'Tis the people who are instinctive -with life and procuress. Scrolls and parchments may be eonsnmed, forms ot *?overnment may be by a breath nnmade, as a breath hath made them, but the people are im- mortal — they (ire. the voluminovs symbol of eternity. Eemember the Almighty ha"s said that He will establish His kingdom and His will on earth, as they are in heaven; and what is this will, what this Ivingdom amonfy the nations?— jwsijce, equality and fraternity ! Here, Eepubli cans, are our oriflambs of freedom, our sliibboleths of party. I^et us not hesi- tate to conform our institntions and forms of government to these immortal ideas that have swept throno'h all ages and nations, and whose reformatory breath we are now feeling. If we do, the tempest will sweep away our Babel monuments, or the ocean bi'eak over our fragile mounds. WHAT REFORM IS NECESSARY. At once strike from the freedmen every manacle of civil inequality. liCt the foot of no man living, I care not in what zone born, tread the soil of Amer- ica, and feel not his soul rise kindling VvMthin him — swelling to the full pro- portions of the dignity and majesty of American freedom. But it is said that the Ireedman is incompetent to exercise the prerogatives of citizenship, and therefore he ought to undergo an edu- cational process of preparation. What! remand him back to siavery ? For two centuries oppression left him with scarce an aspiration of the human soul, in agon- ized hopelessness. Is ignorance a school for intelligence, darkness for light, or slavery for freedom ? There is but one cure for the evil that newly acquired lib- erty produces, and that cure is freedom. When a prisoner leaves his cell, he can- not bear the light of day; he is unable to discriminate colors" or recognize faces; but the remedy is not to re- mand him to prison, but to accustom him to the rays of the sun. The blaze of truth and liberty may at first dazzle and bewilder those who have become blind in the prison-house of bondage; but let them gaze on, they will soon be able to bear it. Many politicians have said that it was a self-evident truth, that no people ought to be free that were not fit to properly appreciate and use their freedom. This maxim is wor- thy the fool in the old story, who said that no man ought to go into the water till he had learned how to swim. If ?iien must wait for liberty till they be- come wise and good in slavery, they would wait forever. If one should post- pone repentance till he became pure in iniquity, he would never feel or see a reconciled God. So spoke Macau lay. Do the freedman's local and social qualifications disqualify him for free- dom ? He never had a home, a country, a language, a religion or God but ours, and he has not the most distant concep- tion of other institutions, laws or gov- ernment; he lias no relatives, friends ot acquaintances besides those who dwell among us. All he is or can hope to be, is American. Therefore, he commences his career of citizenship with some, ad- vantages far superior to those of the foreigner. He has made and will ever make a more submissive citizen than the Anglo-Saxon, because by nature he is less ambitious, less restless, less ava- ricious or revolutionary. Let us at once remove every plea of injustice; let us concede Av'here it i» hopeless to resist; let us not again re- pulse the sibylline prophetess, for she may increase in her extortion for our future safety and happiness. THE FANATICAL TENDENCIES OF THE BAY. Fellow citizens, once more let me conjure you to elevate yourselves to that sublime self-denial by which, unin- fluenced by passion or prejudice, you can calmly contemplate, in the naked solitude of their own merit and impor- tance, the great questions that were in- volved in, and have grown out of our recent rebellion. They nearly and dear- ly pertain to our present and future na- tional telieity and perpetuity. Fanati- cism upon anj^ subject or in any age should be avoided and detested. ''It has no head, and therefore can not think or reason ; it has no heart, and therefore cannot feel t When it moves, it does so only in wrath; when it pauses, it is only amid ruin; its prayers are curses; Its communion death; its vengence is eternity ; its decalogue is written in the blood of its victims ; and if it stoops for a moment in its infernal tiigbt it is upon some kindred rock to whet its vulture fang for keener rapine, and replume its wing for a more sanguinary desolation.'' From this grave-stalled and infernal vampire we now appeal to the practical good sense, the humane and philan- thropic sentiments and feelings of a people, heretofore most distinguished for every attribute of character that dignified and ennobled hnman nature. It is true, "that the zeal requisite for great revolutions, whether in Church or State, is rarely attended by charity for a difference ot opinion. Those who are willing to hazard life, liberty or prop- erty, or all these, for their own doctrines, attach such value to them as to make them very impatient of opposition trom others. The martyr tor conscience sake can not comprehend the necessity of leniency to those who denounce those truths for which he is prepared to sacrifice his own life. If he set so little value on his own life, is it reason- able he should set more on that of oth- ers?" Hence the various political and religious persecutions of the world. When merc3^ and charity are combined with a divine love of principles, and an intense and sublime enthusiasm for hu- manity, you have the most splendid types of our race — a Fenelon of France --a Thomas Moore of England— a Radi- cal Republican of the United States. WHAT IS TREASON AND ITS rUNISHMENT ? The right of resistance to the contin- ued usurpations of arbitrary power is inherent in man. Resort should never be had to the violence of revolution to overthrow an existing government un- til every rational, peaceful and legal ex- pedient had been exhausted to redress grievances, remove evils, or arrest usur- pations, and prevent their future recur- rence. Every true patriot will fivst ask and solve these questions before he pro- ceeds to an armed resistance against his government. Can life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, the great ends of all just and^wise governments, be se- cured to the citizen otherwise? And •will the national good, sought and at- tained, compensate tor the ills to be en- dured, and the perils to be hazarded? "Had-vve not better bear the ills we have Thau fly to tlwse we know not of." It can never be rationally admitted as a principle of any form of government that it concedes to one or more citizens the right to destroy its existence. No State will authorize its own destruction. Hence all governments are organised upon the presumption of immortality; that they will endure to the end of time, and have therefore resisted every attempt to destroy their existence with all the power or force they possessed or could comniand. Bevolvtion is successful rebellion, and the revohitionar}^ hero is a victorious rebel, with the laurel icr&cith encircling his brow. A i-ebel is an unsuccessful revolutionist, with treason branded up- on his brow, traitor flaming upon his back, and the executioner stalking at his heels. Hence rebellion is treason to one's country or government, and in all ages, and among all people, it has been regarded as the most heinous and aggra- vated of all human crimes.and its penalty has invariably been death. Treason is the renunciation of all allegiance to one's country, as well as all the rights of citizenship. A traitor's attitude to- ward his own government is pricisely that of a pirate to all governments, one of defiant and internecine hostility. Treason as defined by the Constitu- tion of the United States is "levying war against the United States, or ad- hering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfoit."' The jninishriient is death; "but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture, except during the life of the person at- tainted." All citizens that did engage directly or indirectly in the recent re- bellion, were gui'ty of levying war against the United States, and therefore are guilty of treason, and did forfeit their lives and their property during life. But our glorious government, with a magnanimity that defied compar- ison— witli a clemency that comported with the enlightened Christian spirit of the age, neither hung any of its citi- zens or confiscated their property, ex- cept In some few instances. Happj'', proud America I Your power and gran- deur justified you in exercising the inerciiul attributes of a benignant Prov- idence, rather than the vindictive and retributive justice of a justly offended majesty. In the magnitude of this crime, there is a vast difference between the igno- rant, unthinking, unambitious, confid- ing and deluded instruments, who ap- plied the torch, and the cunning, daring, ambitious and seditious instijjators, who for years, deliberately devised and matured "the damnable plot. Tlie mass of the people instinctively love their country, and are obedient to its laws — their souls are never fired with a des- perate thirst tor glory; nor are their imaginations dazzled with the splendor of stars and diadems or gorgeous in- signia of royalty and aristocracy— they aspire not to be the Crom wells, (^ati- lines or Cv'esars of revolutions. They have been seduced from a patriotic de- votion to their country — they have been entrapped and confounded by the toils which have been for a series of years deliberately spread for them, by the master genius of the plotters of this ter- rible drama of treason and crime. These latter are the men whose chas- tisements should render treason odious — who should be compelled during their existence "to take back seats" in the ad- ministration of the affairs of that gov- ernment, whose maternal bosom they pierced with murderous steel, and with whose heart's blood they for four years saturated their garments. If not^ our government will secure impunity to treason, and exemption to crime. It; will reverse thejudgmei;t of the world, that mercy to some criminals is treason to the public, and deem the noblest vin- dication of its offended law to consign such men to the terrible punishment of its mercy. DISFRANCHISEMENT. Disfranchisement is the deprivation of a, free citizen of his rights and privileges as such. But the constitution declares tha*, he who levies war against the United States, or who aids and abets those who do; or who gives aid and comfort to such, is a traitor who re- nounces and forfeits all the riijhts of a citizen, and may be punished with death, and a confiscation of his propert}^ This no one of any intelligence will dispute. Has he who has levied war against the government any subsequent right to vote in anj' election, or to hold any office of profit and honor? No; for he for- feited all these rights with that of his life; and if he is permitted to exercise these, or any other, whether of life, lib- erty or property, he does so through the grace and mercy of his government. How unblushing the impudence, how impious the audacity, therefore, of those who, having been traitors or rebels, have clamored, and are still clamoring tor the exercise of the elective francliise in all elections, and their eligibility to all officesof government to which they may be elected — demanding these as their rights as citizens — instead of benignant favors to condemned treason, from a mag- nanimous government. Immediately after the cessation of hostilities, in ac- cordance with the premature policy of restoration adopted by the administra- tion, elections were held in thf ex-rebel States tor representatives in the Con- gress of the United States. Many gen- tlemen wdio held distinguished ofiices in the civil departments of the rebel gov- ernment — who were very prominent in inaugurating the rebellion — ^were can- didates, and were elected to seats in tlie Congress of the United States. What an anomalous spectacle did these men present. Before the smoke of battle had cleared from their vision, with their garments still saturated with fraternal blood, from a ruined, broken-hearted and betrayed constituenc}% they solic- ited otlicial position io that government, and seats of honor in that Congress up- on which a few months before they had invoked the venseance of Heaven — yes, seats beside those very men against whom, but yesterday, ttiey had poured decp-moLitlied curses, and for whom even tlion their hearts rankled with the most vindictive and unrelenting ani- nl0sit3^ But this astonishing spectacle of hu- mility and shame ends not liere. Behold these same men in Washington, tapping at the doors of the halls of Congress for admission; see them as tliey ap- proach the Chases, Sumners, Wades, Stevenses and Schencks — the Gorgon monsters, with whose accursed names they made, during the rebellion, "tierce battle, trebly thundering, swell the gale !" Do these sons of Southern hon- or, higli-born pride and chivalry, roar now like Nemean lions; do they thunder like an Olympian Jove! O. nol They gently pace those halls of State, ancl when they speak to these abused Repub- licans they cluck like gameless hens, or coo like innocent doves. Gentlemen, what has reft you so suddenly of the talon, fang and sting of treason ? What acid have you swallowed to neutralize your spirit of disloyalty and the ran- corous hatred with which your souls still agonize against these "cut-throats, knaves, assassins and monsters," as you once termed them? Why are you so importunate to occupy seats of honor ^by their side, and companion with them 'in the administration of the atfairs of 'that government from whose noble .heart you have just plucked your en- 'Vious steel ? Like ravenous harpies you vmust sate your voracity upon ?omeptib- tlic treasury — your rebel exchequer being i-exhausteci, you must now batten upon 'the Fedi^ral. To what a depth of pitia- ♦ble humilitj'- has your high-blown pride .Bunk^ -with what low-browed baseness do you waft perfume to power — all 'this humility for the per diem of office. The reburf" of some of these Southern ■Representatives from the halls of Con- gress was analagous to that of Catiline " from the Roman Senate after his treason had been fully exposed by Marcus 'Cicero. He said: "Alas, the times! Alas, the public morals! How long, O •Catallne, will you abuse our patience? Art tliou nothing daunted bj' the avert- ed looks of ail here present? Do j^ou live to confront us here in council, to ■take part in our deliberations? There ■was tiiat virtue once in Rome when a •wicked citizen was held more execrable •than the deadliest foe. You sliall soon 'be made aware thtit we are even more active in providing for the preservation of the State than you in plotting its de- struction." Even the delicate forbear- ance of President Johnson was so shock- -ed attheir audacity that he advised Con- gress "to kick these gentlemen from their halls, and flll their places with ■loyal men." Treason against the Federal Govern- ■ment was also treason against the State 'Of Tennessee, and the audacious claims of disloyal men to the exercise of the elective fianchise and to hold <)fflce within this State, as rights which they have been deprived of «s citizeits, is as ab- surd and unpardonable as in the former case of the Federal Government. They have no rights as ci<(^e?is in the State except such as the supreme power in the Federal and State Governments may concede them as boons of mercy — none others whatever. • I know there were honorable excep- tions in the above class of politicians, who gracefully yielded to the impor- tunate solicitations of their friends, and although identitied with the rebellion, sincerely believe by tlieir election tliey could achieve some good, under the cir- cumstances, for their afflicted country. But still this was a mistaken policy. Their re-appearance so soon in oilice ir- ritated and did not conciliate the North- ern mind. OTHER CAUSES OF THE PRESENT CIVIL DISABILITIES OF THE SOUTH. I am aware that in all republican governments analogous to ours, there will ever be a flock of political ravens hovering about the public treasury ever crying for daily food, too proud or indo- lent to obtain an honorable mainten- ance by the sweat of their brow. These buzzing, babbling and shallovv-pated demagogues can only subsist in the pu- trid pools of political venality and cor- ruption. In the piping times of peace they discourse sweeter music than ^Eo- li:iH harps or Thracian lutes, and in the storms of revolution they roar louder than the sullen tempest's wing. But now, deprived of the glittering pelf of office by their participation in the re- cent rebellion, or tlieir sympathy with it since it ceased, they resort to every means of inflaming the unsubdued ani- mosity of the South towards the victo- rious North and the Federal Govern- ment. Again, there is another class of fo- menters of public discord. Before the rebellion thei^ were going to spill the last drop of their precious blood, or sacritlce their last dollar for Southern independence. But when the clash of arms came, they very prudently, as most loyal men, sliiekled themselves behind the rusliing eagles of the republic, to conserve their lives and private fortunes. They now call themselves Conservatives. These pie-bald political hyi>ocrites, lily-livered patriots, carry always two flags behind and two before them, which they are pi'epared, on all occasions, to flout in the face of ex-rebels or Repub- licans, as they are accosted from tlie rear or from the front. From their hermaphroditic character they are pe- culiarly eligible to all oflices of honor, especially' those of profit. These gen- tlemen, to prove tlieir intense sympath}"- for disfranchised ex-rebels in public places, pummel tiievery air with horrid imprecations against Northern fanati- cism. Congressional desjiotism and Southern Republicans. 1 have intinitelj'' more respect tor the professed loyalty of tiiat avalanche of cavalry, N. B.For- rest, or that thunderbolt of infantry, Frank Cheatham, than I have for the profession of a million of such men. Again, there is another class of incen- diary disturbers of the public peace. They were the snow-fingered, kid- gloved and violet-perfumed gentry of the South, who, like Job's illustrious war horse, though their necks were clothed ill thuiiticr. smittVil battle from afar. They lilled witii ol)trusive dis- tinction lucrative ami speculative posi- tions in the ordnance, quartermaster's and commissary departments; or own- ing twenttj negroes, with chivalric grace, exempted themselves from the verj: sligiitest participation in '"the ricli man's war, but poor man's tight;" or possessing peculiar blandishaients of address or rare accomplishments of horsemanship, glittered like garish stars in the staffs of generals. Many of this class, to commend themselves to public notoriety and damn to immortality their Quixotic achievements upon carnage- covered ftelds, on the public liighways, ia ale saloons, and through the daily press, swelled the volume of abuse against Republicans and the Federal Government and Southern loyal men. Again, there is still another class of moi"e inveterate, but not less malignant liaters of the Northern people and the '■ Federal Union. The men who consti- tute this class are the most dignified, intelligent and aristocratic of Southern society. They form the very nobility of Southern Democracy — thej^ are the founders and leaders of the State Rights Democratic party. This aristoc- racy was based on vast estates of lands and negroes, and believed that cotton, rice, sugar and tobacco constituted the attributes of omnipotence. The plan of this party was (and they succeeded in it) to consolidate the power of the Southern slave States into an indivisi- ble unit, so that tliey could hurl it with crushing force against the enemies of the peculiar institution. Fools to have vainly imagined that they could have crystalized ti\e power «f "the Southern States to perpetuate tor ages the institu- tion of human slavery, without array- ing against it the equally united anti- slavery ISlorth and the Christian civil- ized world. When in the blindness of their infatuation, they erected in the despotic Confederacy of the South a national temple to this idolatrous divin- it}', it was then that an indignant Heav- en smote with its lightning and shivered to atoms this impious government, its temple and its God. This revolutionary State Rights Dem- ocratic party never attained the digni- fied proportions of respectability in Tennessee, till Isham G. Harris succeed- ed to its Gubernatorial chair. Under his pernicious auspices, the old Jackson Democracy became debauched in this as it had been in other Southern States; and it was almost transformed into this Democratic aristocracy of Mississippi and South Carolina, when rebellion, like a fiery simoom, burst from the confines of South Carolina, and spread north- ward and westward its consuming blasts. It was from this magazine of Democracy that every missile of rebel- lion has been drawn for the last twenty years. But the rebellion having crushed out this party with its Virginia and Kentucky secession resolutions, and its heart's blood — African slavery — it has dropped its haughty plume and cos- tume, and now presents its Protean de- formity in the piteous haberdashery of Conservatism. It has merely skulked hehind this artful drapery of ignomin- ious imposition, to change its assault from lorce to fraud— from the battery to the mine. Old Line Whigs — you whose political faith was always right; Old Line Jack- son Democrats— you whose former love for the Union was not wrong — in Heav- en's name, I beseech you, no longer per- niic yourselves to be made the credu- lous dupes of an imposture so gross, so rank and so impious. KX-REBEL OFFICERS AND SOLDIERS. Gentlemen, since you sheathed your swords, and folded your banners, which waved defiance amid the sulphurous smoke and volleyed thunder of so many battle-fields, you have, I believe, with, perhaps few distingmshed exceptions, observed with inviolable integrity your plighted honor. You have not been the promoters of public discord or section- al strife, or the instigators of murder- ous riots or ^)rivate assassinations, but almost invariably demeaned yourselves with a dignified self-respect — with an unobtrusive obedience to the laws of the country — with a courteous civility to the heroic Federal soldiery, which cowards may not appreciate — yet which brave tnen ever evince to the brave. No, not yet does Base dishonor blur your names. Gentlemen, the noblest expiation which you can make for the past to your magnanimous country, would be actively to assist all good citizens to maintain the supremacy of the law, and to restore as speedily as possible the reconciled relations and kinder feel- ings of our fellow-citizens. Do not for- get that your country can truthfully say to you. The power I have over you is to spare you. The malice towanl 3'on, t.o fov^'ive you; live, TUerelor^-, and dt-al with others as nobly. Follow the examples of .Johnston and Withers, of Taylor and Maney, of Cheat- ham and Forrest, whose fortunes you fol- lowed in the midst of many battles. Read the strong and manly letter of Gen. Lontrstreet, one of your ablest and best chieftains, and resolve with him, that you will "work in any harness that promises relief to our distressed people and harmony to the nation." Disregard the base appeals to prejudice with which so many of the presses of the South abound — in none of which can you find published these noble sentiments: Nkw Orleans, Juue 3, 186T. J. if Q. Parker, Efiil, to which you lef'-r, cleariy iiidirates a d sire for practical reconstruction and recon- ciliation Praciical men can surely iiistinguish bet\ve»m practical reconstruction and rei-ou- struction as an abstract question. I will en- deavor, howHver, will renewed ener-jy, to meet your wislies in the matter. The serious difllciily that I apprehend is the want of that wisdom which is necessary for the great work. I shall be happy to work ia any harness that promi-es reliefto our distressed people and iuvmoiiy to the nation. Ic matters not wlie'h- er T beai- th4 mantle ol' Mr. Davis or the nnantle of Mr. Sumner, so that I may help to bring- the glory ol' "pence und good will toAvard men." Is'iall set out by u^sllmin,^• a proposition that I hold to be self evident, viz: The in^'h^-st of human laws is the law that is established by ap- peal ta arms. The great princip'cfs that divided politicil partifS prior to the war were thor' ughly dis- C'si^ed by our wisest >tatpsmen. When argu- jnent was exhausted, resort was had to comftro- mise. Whi n compromise was unavailing, dis- cussion was renewed, and expedients were sought, but none could he fntind to suit the emerfrency. Appeal was iinally made to the sword, to determire which of the claims was the ti «e construction of const tulional laAV. Ttie sword has decided in favor of tlie North, and whiit they cla mtd a-: principles ceased to be principle^, and are beco"me law. The views tiat wr h'ld cease to be principles because they areo)iposed to law It is therefore our duy to ahaii' on ideas that »re ob.->o ete, and conlorm to the requirements of law. ThcMili'ary act. and a i endmeuts, are peace off rinns We should accept them as such, and place ourselves upon them as the starting point from which to meet future political i&siies as thcv rise. Ijik" other Southern men, I nat«iraily sought alliance with the Democatjc partv merelv be- cause it was opposed to tlie Kepubliean party. But as lar as lean .judge, the e is uoihiii< tan- gible about it, excel t the issues that. Avere stuk-' ed upon the war and there lo^t. Finding noth- ing to taiie hold ot except prejudice which cannot be worked into go d lor any one, it, is proper and right that I stjould seek some btaud- point from which good maybe done. If I aiipreciate the principles of the Demo- cratic party, its promiuent features oppose the eifrau<-,hisem(nt of the colored man, and deny theriijhtto legl-laie upon the sutject of suf- frage except by the States individually. The-e two leatiires have a tendeacy to exclude South- • rn men from th it party; for the cnlored man is already enlranchised here, and we cannot teek alliance with a pariy that would restrict his riahts. 'Ihe exclusive rightol the ■ tatt s to leg- islate upon suffrage will make the enf: ancbise- ment ot the blacks, whether for b?tterorfor worse a fixture among us. It appeais. there- fore, tViat those who cry loudesc against this neworilerof things as a public calamity are those whose princii les wouid fix it upon us without a remedy. Hence it becom< s us to in- sist that suffrage shoul'i be extended in all of the States, and fully tested. The people of the isorth should adoj t what they have fo ced upon us; and if it be proved to be a inistake, they should remove it^ by the remedy, under republi- can pri ciples. of uniform laws upLiii sufTrage. If every man in the country will a.eet the crisis with a proper appreci.tion oi' our condition, and come fairly up to his lesponsiliilities, on to- morrow the sun will smile upon a hatipy peo- ple, our fields witluga n b gin to yield their in- crease, our railroads and rivers will tetm with abnu'lant ci)tnm! rce, our to\v'us an i our cities wi 1 resouud with the tumult ' f trade, and we sha 1 be invigorated by the blessinL;s ol Al- mighty God. I am, sir, very re^pecti ully. Your most otiedtent servant, James Longstkeet. It was the venom, diffiisetl throue iihiioso^jhers have judged, Jfecause a kick in that jjl^K-e uiore Hurts such honor than wounds before; All is lost, except honor. This reply of treason to loyalty is unblushing in impudence, and defiant in audacity. In the estimation, of these ex-rebels, it is very honorable to levy war against their country — to sacrifice a million of lives upon the altar ot an unliallowed ambi- tion — to reduce to widowhood, orphan- age, beggaij-, crime and wretchedness, millions of human beings — to wrap cities in flames, and whelm States in ruin, and entail upon unborn genera- tions three thousand milhons of oppres- sive debt. This reply is about as grace- ful and appropriate as that of C;iin, the lirst murderer, to his God, when He asked him where was liis brother — "am I my brother's keeper?"" That honor that consists in treason, in violating the laws of one's country and one's God — that persists in wholesale murder and crime for years, is upon a par with a duelist's honor, who vainly imagines that he ceases to be a murderer, a vil- lain or a savage because he can light; " that all crimes, however revolting, can be wiped out by blood ; " that true honor can alone be acquired or maintained by cold blooded and deliberate murder; *"■ that steel and gun powder are the true diagnostics of innocence and worth." Bears and lions are no less honorable than such monsters, for a life of blood is their nature too- There is but one honor that a brave and good man should ever covet, and that is to serve with fidelity his God, his country and his tellow man. This is that high-born honor for which a man, if necessary, should sacrifice his life, for it accords with the principles of justice, humanity, patriotism, eternal rectitude. Be sure you are right, then firmly act, For in such act on true honor lies. The Greeks and Romans differed ex- ceedingly from such Conservatives of this day in their estimation of honor. Virtue and honor were deemed insepar- able by them, and so defined. Their consecrated temples at Rome were so constructed that their votaries could not enter the oue without passing through the other. Thus the Greek and Roman regarded individual and nation- al honor as synonj'mous with individu- al and national virtue. Did they ever regard a rebellious opposition to the laws of one's country or treason a pub- lic virtue? A virtuous submission to the laws of God and one's country con- stitutes the Corinthian capital of true honor. THE PKINCIPLES AND POLICY OF THE NA- TIONAL REPUBLICAN PARTY. No politic!il society can exist without an organized government — no well reg- ulated libertj^ can exist without impar- tially administered laws. Therefore those who, instigated by an inordinate ambition, by avarice, by sectional ani- mosity, or any other wicked purpose, attempt to subvert the existing govern- ment — to defy and overthrow the laws, are enemies to society and humanity — to political libert}', to social order and individual happiness. Again:- -To maintain our form of gov- ernment and our constitutional liberty, the laws muse be executecland their vio- lations punished. Hence the principles and policy of the National Republican party. Firstly. Every administration of the government shall entorce, as the funda- mental law of the land, the constitution and all laws of the United States made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made or which shall be made under the authority' of the Unjted States; and the jndges in every State shall be bound thereby — anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding. Second!}'. Secession of one or more States is disunion — disunion is treason. and the penalty of treason is death and the confiscation of property. Ihirdiy. American constitutional lib- erty can alone be maintained by the virtue, intelligence and patriotism of our citizens, their political and civil equality; hence we are in favor of equal rights, tree schools, free speech, a tree press and a Christian education. Fourtlily. That as Congress alone can admit new States into the Union, can make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other prop- erty belonging to the United States or dispose of the same, or have the power to declare the punishment of treason ; therefore Congress, in order to punish the treason of rebellious States, to pre- serve the Union and thfe constitution, and to enforce a loyal obedience to the same, have the power to make all need- ful rules and regulations with regard to such rebellious States, or to establish such forms of government over them as will best accomplish the objects and purposes aforesaid. Thus have we s^rouped together in the form of propositions the essential prin- ciples constituting the policy or plat- form of the Republican party. What patriot or votary of our constitutional libertj'' can object to them? Those em- braced in the two first propositions were proclaimed and were enforced by the immortal Washington, the elder Adams, by xVndrew Jackson, and the benefactor of his race, Abraham Lincoln. The whisky rebellion of Pennsylva- nia, in 1794, w^s instijiated by the dem- ocratic societies and party, who were hos- tile to the administration of Geor^^e AVashinofton, and tlireatened to involve the whole Union in general couliaufration a..s we are informed bv Ciiief Justice Marshall, in his lile of Washington, vol. 2, pa^re 345. General Washington, as we are informed by nis two proclamations, of August 7th and September 2.5th, and his Sixth Annual Message to Congress, in 1794, declared that this rebellion was treason against the people and Govern- ment of the United States; and the in- stigators of it, as well as their aiders and abetters, were traitors. General Wash- ington called upon the Governors of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Virginia, and Maryland to fvirnish him fifteen thousand troops to suppress it. The Governors of these States consented with alacrity to his request, and comu)anded in person their respective troops. Under the supreme direction of General Wash- ington, as generalissimo, they marched fortli to the rendezvous of the traitors, in West Pennsylvania. General Wash- ington, after having directed the gen- eral operations, left for the capital, be- stowing the chief command upon Gen- eral Lee, then Governor of Virginia. This rebellion, that menaced for a time the whole Union, was immediately sup- pressed. Here we behold the State of Virginia — yes. old Virginia, in 179-1, un- der her beloved Washington as President and under her Gen. Lee as Governor — sending forth her troops into a sister State to suppress a treasonable insurrection and to punish the traitors and their trea- son — asserting and enforcing the funda- mental doctrine of the Republican pjii-- ty that the Uinon and constitution shall be preservtnl — the laws made in pursuance tlie/eof shall be enforced — traitors and treason shall be punished. In his Sixth Annual Message referred to, he recommended to Congress, (and it complied,) that while those who com- mitted overt acts of treason should be punished, it was their duty to indem- nify " all citizens who had sufi'ered dam- ages by their generous exertions, lor upholding the constitution and laws;" adding, ''that the government would be ampl}^ repaid by the influence of an example, that he who Incurs a loss in its defense shall find a recon)pense in its liberality. (Statesman's Manual, vol. 1, p. 58,) Again, in 1799, another rebellion less formidable than the above, broke out in the western counties of Pennsylvania, during the administration of the ^Ider Adams. He denounced it and its insti- gators, and suppressed it by the strong arm of the military, in the same man- ner as his illustrious predecessor. He had traitors punished and loyal men in- demnihed for losses. (Sec his Third An- nual Message, Dec. 3d, 1799, History Fed. Gov. p. 104.) These two rebellions, the former to defeat the Excise law upon the distillation of whisky— the lat- ter the law relative to the valuation of houses and lands,were instigated by the same class or character of persons that plotted the secession of South Carolina in 1833, and the recent rebellion of 18tJ3, viz: Political associations calling them- selves Democratic. South Carolina,, through her Governor and Legislature in 1832. proclaimed that the tariff laws of 1828 and 1832 were unconstitutional, and they would resist them with force. While the bill was before the Senate in January, 1833, giv- ing President Jackson full power to enforce the laws, Mr. Calhoun intro- duced a series of resolutions, one of which denied to the Federal Govern- ment or any of its department the con- stitutional power to coerce the States into a submission to the laws of Con- gress by the employment of force. The citizens of South Carolina did not then, dare to commit an overt act of treason, but subsided into an obedience to the laws. Pres.id en t Jackson, in his procla- mation of December 11th, 1832, and in his Null i fie atibn Message of January 16th, 1833, declared that he would exe- cute by force, if necessary, the laws — that '■'■the doctrine of secession was that of unhallowed disunion; that one overt act was treason, and that the instigators as well as their aiders and abetters should suffer condign punishment." If Washington, Adams or Jackson bad been President during our recent rebel- lion, would Jefi". Davis and his peers in treason have escaped its penalty of death ? If the merciful Lincoln had lived, even he never would have con- sented to a less pvinishment than an eternal expatriation of the ringleaders of the recent rebellion and the confisca- tion of their property. Of ail soldiers and citizens otherwise he would demand, as all good Kepublieans now demand, a total abandonment of all treasonable designs, sentiments and feelings, and a restoration of reciprocal kindness, con- fidence and love. This is all the pun- ishment and confiscation we now re- quire. ANDREW JOUNSON'S AND EMERSON ETH- ekidge's record. Thus far we have demonstrated that the great doctrines of constitutional liberty advocated by the National Re- publican party, and embraced in our two first propositions, were advocated and enforced by Washington, Adams, Jack- son and Lincoln ; also, the instigators and their accomplices of all the treas- onable rebellions anterior to that of iS62, were those belonging to associa- tions, or a party called Democratic. Again, it is a remarkable fact that these wicked men have attempted to justify their treason under the plea of the sovereign or reserved rii/hts of the State. The rebellions of VVashingtou and Adams \\ere suppressed by a party then called Federal or Reuublican — thals of South Carolina, in 1832, by a party ealled Whig, under the leadership of Daniel Webster and Henry Clay, aid- ed by that portion of the Deniocrat- ic party called Jacksonian. in contra- distinction to the State Rights Democ- racy, under the leadership of Mr. Cal- houn. It is a solemn truth of history that the Republican party, whether called Federal in the days of Washington and Adams, and Jackson orWiiigdii- riug the exiiteuge of Clay and Wybster, and since their death, never advocated in speeches or national phitfornis the doctrine of State Riijlits as expounded by the Democratic party, but invariably denounced it as revolutionary and treas- onable. Again, it is a solemn historical truth tliat since the days of plattorms, the Whiij or Republican party, in every platform from 1840 to 1860, have asserted as their cardinal doctrines the supreme authority and obligation of the consti- tution, the laws of Congress and treat- ies made in pursuance thereof. On the other hand, the Democratic party in not one of their national platforms ever asserted this great doctrine as a part of their political faith, but instead, sub- stituted the Virijinia and Kentucky resolutions of 1798 and '99 — from which resolutions of Stai'e Rights the seces- sionists, revolutionists and traitors of every rebellion since 1798, as from a ter- rible magazine, have drawn in justitica- tion all their thunderbolts of disunion, treason and blood. Such also was the character of the Rhode Island and the Ohio rebellions. Again, we assert without the fear of contradiction, that the Democratic par- ty is responsible, and was the author of tne recent rebellion, with all its horrors and crimes of blood and desolation, of disfranchisement and confiscation. We will, upon tliis occasion, confine our proof to tlie assertion of two gentlemen, somewhat prominent at the present time from their political position — we allude to Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, and hmerson Ether- idge, the Conservative candidate for the Gubernatorial chair of State. President .Johnson was United States Senator of tiiis State in lS6U-"61-"62. He made two speeches in the Senate, the first near tlie close of the session in 1861, and the latter January 31, 1862. In these speeches he sums up all the causes of the rebellion, and lie asserted that the Southern leaders of the Democracy were '"responsible for all the bloodshed and murder of the rebellion;" '-that if their Representatives in Congress had not resigned their seats, but remained in them and voted, no measure could have passed Congress detrimental to their constitutional rights or interests." He exclaimed, "I believe, Mr. Presi- dent, that these gentlemen were acting In pursuance of a settled and fixed plan to break up and destroy the govern- ment." (See Congressional Globe of 1861 and 1862, and McPherson's Histo- ry of the Rebellion, pp. 66 and 67.) It is a fact that every one of the elev- en States that rebelletl in 1862 were in the possession and under the control txclusively of the Democratic party. The old Whig party was almost extin- guished in name and power. What few Representatives fromthe South it had in Congrei"S in 1861, almost to a man, were opposed to the rebellion, and remained true to the Union. In the North, both in Congress and in the States, nearly overy member of the Copperhead or Conservative party be- longed, anterior to the war, to the Dem- ocratic party ; and it was this party that contained all the opposition to the sup- pression of the rebellion, in and out of Congress. EMEKSON ETHERIDGEON THE DEMOCRACY. Were it not for this gentlenjan's pres- ent ijosition, what iie may have said up- on any subject would not in the slight- est manner interest us. This gentle- man, from his debut in Congress as a Representative from this State to the period of his election to the clerkship ot the House of Representatives, almost in every speech, has denounced the Democratic party as the authors of our sectional strife. In his speeches of 1861, he charges them as the autiiors and instigators of the war, and as alone responsible for all its crimes and conse- quences. (As proof, see A pp. Cong. Globe,pp. 39 and 40,1 Sess. 34th Congress, 1855; see App. Cong. Globe, 1 Sess. 33d Congress, p. 835, of 1854; pp. 368 and 369 34th Congress, 3d Sess., App. p. 1,498; Cong. Globe, part 2d, 1st Sess. .S6th Con- gress, 1859 and 1860.) In his speech in 1861 he declares the rebellion of 1862 '"the most extraordinary, unparalleled and unjustifiable the world ever saw" — denounced the traitors as sporting with the worst passions of mankind. In his sneech of March 2, at the courthouse in the city of Nashville, there was no fierce or sanguinary epithet he did not apply to the instigators of the rebellion and all those who7 directly or indirect- ly, aided or abetted them. (See Nash- ville Banner of that date.) Is it not remarkable that ninety-nine hundredths of the very men denounced, above by Pi-esident Johnson and Emer- son Etheridge, constitute the party to which they alone look for fa- vor or otllcial position. On the other hand, the millions of loyal men that sustained in every emergency the government in the suppression of the rebellion are their political opponents. Again, but it is stranger still, that these two gentlenifn who have mutuallj' de- nounced each other as traitors and ty- rants, now are mutually sustained by the same party and by each other. On the 15th of October, 1864, and October 29, 1864, W. B. Campbell, T. A. R. Nel- son, Henry Cooper and Emerson Eth~ eridge, with six others from this State, now all Conservatives, sent two ''im- mortal " protests against the tyranny and other high crimes and misdemean- ors of Andrew Johnson, then military Governor of this State, thri)ugh their fiuthorized agent, jfohn Lellyett, one of the protestors, to Washington, to induce his removal by Mr. Lincoln. Andrew Johnson was not satisfied with being merely sustained by President Lincoln, but having called together his loyal friends at the Capitol of the State, made them a speech in which he denounced the treason of said Etheridge and friends. Among many things, he said: ''Loyal men from this day forward are to be controllers of the grand and sublime desti.iy of Tennessee, and 7-ehels must be dumb. We must not listen to their counsels. Nashville is no longer the place for them to hold their meetings. Let them gather their treasonable con- claves elsewhere — among their friends in the Confederacy. They shall not hold their conspiracies in Nashville." This is very severe against Etheridge, 10 and President Johnson must in his heart loathe him still. Etheridge now sus- tains the President — nay, he speaks kindly and couiplimentary of him. But this Is mouth honor— bre;ith, wliich The poor lieiirt would faiu rei use, but dare not. (See McP. H. of K. pp. 440-41.) ANDREW JOHNSON SUSTAINS THE PRINCI- PLES AND POLICY OF THE ItEPUBLICAN PARTY. He has ever advocated the paramount authority of the Federal Constitution and the laws made in pursuance thereof — aiiythino^ in the constitution and the laws of the States to the contrary. He has ever asserted that rebellion against the same was treason ; that all trai- tors should be punished; that the instigators of treason should sutler death and confiscation; that none but loyal men shouhl be permitted to vote or hold office, and that all traitors and their aiders and active sympathizers should be disfranchised and disqualitied from holding office in the Federal or State Governments. He has never uttered one word retracting what he has said in the almost innumerable speeches he has made against the punishment of treason and traitors; their disqualification to vote or hold office; their disfranchise- ment or confiscation of property. In- deed, but very few of the most radical Republicans have ever advocated his extreme measures. The proofs are his speeches in the United States Senate in 1861 and '62; his speech while military Governor of Tennessee — first at the St. Cloud Hotel in February, 1862; at the court house in this city March 2d, 18G2; at the Capitol, where he denounced Lell- yett, Campbell, Etheridgeand others as traitors; in his interview with citizens of Indiana at Washington, as President, April 21st, 1865; speech to the Virginia refugees, April 24th, 1SG5; interview with the Committee of the Legislature of Virginia, February 10th, 1866; speech ot February 22, 1866, as re- ported by the National Intelligencer; and his .-innual Message. December 4th, 186.5. (From p. 44 to 64, McPherson's Political Manual.) TREASON IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTA- TIVES OF THE UNITED STATES. On the 14th of December, 1865. Mr. Henderson, of Oregon, snbmit'ed the following resolution : Resolved "that treason again'st the Gjsvernnient of the United States icas a crime that ought to be punished." It passed the House without a dissenting voice, every Dem- ocrat voting for it. (P. M., p. 109.) EMANCIPATION OF THE SLAVES. Upon the present occasion we will only notice one more topic of discussion embraced in the propositions we have designated, as constituting the platform of the Republican party, and that is emancipation. Mr. Etheridge stated in his speech in this city, recently, that the constitu- tional amendment abolishing slavery throughout the United States could not have passed without the aid of Demo- cratic votes, and it was the Democratic or Conservative votes that did pass it. Again he said, that it required a certain number of slaveholding State.* to adopt it as an amendijient before it became a part of the fundamental lavv, which requisite number of ex-rebel or slave- holding States did adopt it, thus atlbrd- ing incontestable proof that the Demo- crats or Conservatives were as mucii in favor of the emancipation of the slaves as the Republicans. Let us examine the truth of these as- sertions. The proposed amendment abolishing slavery throughout the United States passed the Senate of the United States April 8th, 1864. Senators voting for it were 38 — all Republicans but two, who were Conservatives; Sen- ators voting against it, 6 — all Conserva- tives. The amendment passed the House of Representatives, Januaiy 31, 1865; Rep- resentatives voting for it 119 — all Re- publicans but fourteen, who were Con- servatives! Representatives voting against it 56 — all Conservatives. There were eight Conservatives or Democrats that absented themselves and would not vote — they were against the bill, but dared not vote against it. Thus we see out of a total vote of 78 Conservative Representatives only 14 voted to eman- cipate the slaves; and nearly every one of these fourteen are now acti'" •: with the Republican party. At the next session of Congress the Republicans could have passed the bill without the aid ot a Democratic vote, from the ac- cession of strength from members new- ly elected in tlie place of Democrats. The President desired his friends to pass it at this session, because he s.aid it was essential to re-establish peace at an earlier day with the rebel States. We ourself are cognizant of all the facts connected with its passage. (See McPherson's Historv ot the War, pages 256 and 591.) THE ACTION OF THE SLAVE STATES RELA- TIVE TO EMANCIPATION. Long before the war closed, the proc- lamations of President Lincoln, on the 22d of September, 1862, and January 1st, 1863, as well as the passage of the constitutional amendment. January 31st, 1865, had emancipated all the slaves of the rebel States. Beside, it was made the duty of all officers of the army and navy commanding in the several rebel States, to proclaim and enforce the emancipation proclamations, which they invariably did. Therefore the mere adoption of the constitutional amendment by these States amounted to a nullity. Very few of their citizcHS could vote, and none hold office or were eligible to seats in the Legislatures or States conventions, but under the mo.st stringent qualifications. What they did in relation to the emancipation of the slaves was done from dire necessity under the glare and dread of the bayo- net, and not from choice. Beside, Pres- ident Johnson, in dispatches to several ot their military Governors, urged them to adopt it to avoid the plea of confiscation. A few general facts will settle this question definitely. First. When President Lincoln issued his first proclamation of emancipation, Mr. S. C Fessenden, of Maine, introduc- ed a resolution December 15, 1862. in the House of Representatives justifying it upon the ground of constitutional pow- 11 er, Justice and expediency, and every Democrufc or Conservative of tiie House voted at incontestably the sentiments and feelings ot the reb- el States in relation to the emancipation of the slaves — althoufth many of the colored people had been employed by the rebel government, or forced into their military service as teamsters.cooks. builders of fortilications, or common soldiers, and many killed in the tierce conllict of armies — there never was a law passed by any State Legislature, or by the rebel government, tluit emanci- pated them or their families. Beside, the last law that passed the rebel Con- gress calling for 300,000 additional troops, irrespective of color, especially provided that the colored soldiers should not be emancipated. Thus v;e have the animus of the slave States upon this subject. And to-day in every ex-rebel slave State, if the exercise of the elective franchise were given and confined to the white popula- tion, they would vote by overwhelming majorities against giving to the colored man the political and civil rights of the >vhite man, and all their legislation since the cessation of hostilities to the present time prove this. (See Political Manual for 1866, by McPherson, from p. IS to 28; McPherson, H. R., pp. 611 and 612.) TELE SLAVERY RECORD OF EMERSON ETHERIDGE. The Conservative press and orators of this State, friends of Mr. Etheridge, declare he has ever been favorable to the freedom of the slave, and conse- quently you find in the Nashville Ban- ner of April 2Ist, 1867, the following: LET IT BE Ki- MEMBERED Til AT EMER- SON ETHEKIDGiiOI'POSEDTHE KANSAS NEBRASKA BILL BECAUSE IT EXTEND- E(>^LAVERY. LErir BE KEMEMBERKDTHATE 'ER- SON ETHERIUGE WAS THE ONLY SOUT i- ERN CONgRKSsMAN THAT VOTED TO ADMIT KANSAS WITH A FKHE STATE COS.STITUTION. LET ITBE REMEMBERED THAT EMER- SON ET^.ERIDG OFFEiiED A RESOLU- TION I^f CONGRESS DENOUNCING THE Ai rican slave trade. The facts are as follows: The famous Kansas-Nebraska bill passed the House of Representatives May 22d. 185-4 — yeas 113; nays 100. Voting against it were the following slaveholders from Tennes- see: Mr. Etheridge, Mr. Briggs, Mr. Cullom and Mr. Taylor; and in the Sen- ate, the lion. John Bell. Not one of these gentlemen ever asserted at the time or since that they voted against this bill because they were in favor of the freedom of the slaves in the District of Columbia, in the slave States, or iii the Territories. Beside these, many gen- tlemen from other slave States voted with Mr. Etheridge against it. who, like him, were notorious slaveholders and advocators of slavery. Again, many gentlemen from the Northern States voted for it. who were opposed to the institution of slavery. (SeeMcChiskey's Text Book, p. 357.) Again, it is said that Mr. Etheridge voted for the admission of Kansas (as a State) into the Union under the Topeka constitution, which did exclude slavery. On page 389, McCluskey's Text Book, I you find the following :" j On the 7th of April, 185(), the memorial of the Senators and "Representatives of the so-c;i.liei State of Kansas, accompanied by tho c mstitu- , tion of sa d State, adoptid at Topeka, praying the admiss onoi the same into the Union, was un-sented and referred to the Committee on Ten itories. Mr. Grow, of Pennsylvania, on behalf of the Committee on Territories, consisting of himself, Messr-. Giddings, of Ohio: Granger, of New York; Purviancoof Pennsylvania; Moirill, of Vermont, and Perry, of Maine, reported a bill to admit Kansas as a St.te under the Topeka con- stitution Mr. ZollicofTer, of Tennes-^ee, svibmitted a min- ority report from the same committee, wi h a bill providing lor the format on of a constitution and St.ite government, and the admission of Kansas as a ."tute. The bill of the majority of the committee ad- mitring K nsas unuer tne Topeka constitution, was rejected on the 30th of J uue, by yeas and navs as follows : Yeas ICG [nearly all Iree-soil- ers] , nays 107. Mr. Etheridge, instead of voting for this bill excluding slavery from Kansas, voted with nearly every member of the slave States against it. From Tennessee, voting with Mr. Etheridge, were Felix ZoHicofter, Sneed, George Jones, Taylor, Wright and Charles Ready. ABOLITION 0F THE SLAVE TRADE. Again, it is said that Mr. Etheridge was opposed to African slavery and friendly to the emancipation of tlie col- ored race because he introduced the fol- lowing resolution in the House of Rep- resentatives, December 15, 1856 : Hesolved, That this House of Represent atives regard all sufn- and propositions of every kin'(, by whomsoever made, tor a revival of the African slave tr ide. as shocking to the moral sentiment ot the enlightened portion of man- kind ; and that any action on th part of Cou- griss conniving at or legalizing that horrd and inanman traffic, would justly subjeot thii Gov- ernment and citizens ol the Unite I States to the reproach and execration of all civilized and Christian people thiougiiout the world. This resolution at the time, by many Representatives both from the North, and the South, was denounced as in- opportune and unnecessary, because the Government of the United States, from 1794, had prohibited by sundry legislation this inhuman traffic; and, in 1820, had declared any citizen, directly or indirectly engaged in it, should be adjudged guilty of piracj^ and on con- viction should suffer death. The Rep- resentatives from Tennessee, wdio voted with Mr. Etheridge for tills resolution, were General ZoUicoffer, Mr. Reiidyand ]Mr. Rivers — all slave holders, and since, I believe, ex-rebels; beside, there were also many slave holders from Delaware, Maryland, Missouri, Alabama, Ken- tucky and North Carolina who voted for it. On this occasion the ex-rebel Senator Orr, of South Carolina, introduced the Ibllowing resolution, more succinctly 12 embracing tlie substance of the Ethe- rid^e resolution. This resolution was adopted, with but eAght dissentinor votes. (See Cluskey's Text Book, pajres 585, 88, 89.) Mr. Orr — I ask the unanimous consent of the House ti> I fl'er the following resolution : " Bexolved, Thatii is inexped eut. unwise and contrary to the settled policy ol' tlie United States, to rr j)eal the laws prohibiting the Afri- can slave trade. Mr. Barclay (Republican), ol Pennsylvania, objected. The rults were suspended, yeas 181, nays 10. The negative voti» was as follows: Nays— Messrs. Barclay, Bark>d:ile, Hendley S. Bennett, Brooks, CrawlO'd, Day. Garnett, Quitman, Short r, Walker— 10. To prove most conclusively that Mr. Etheridj^e's resolution was sounding brass, signifying nothing, Mr. Boyce, another South Carolina secessionist and slaveholder, introduced the following as a substitute for Col. Orr's resolution : Mr. Boyce— I have a substitute for my col- league's resolution, whii',li 1 ask may be read for the information of the House. The resolution ■\v«s read, as follows: Hesolved, That the IIousp of Representatives, expressing, as they believe, public opinion both North and south, ari: utterly oppoaed to the re-opening of the slave trade. Thus, there could scarcely be found one solitary Representative from the slave States in Congress opuosed to the principle of Mr. Etiieridge's resolution, or in favor of re-opening of the slave trade. etheridge's resolutions to amend the constitution. Page 297 of the Congressional Globe, for Jan. 7, 1861, the session of the 36th Congress: AMEXD.MENT OF THE CONSTITUTION. Mr. Etheridge— Mr. Sp aker, I desire to ask the unanimous consent, of the House to intiO" duce a joint resolution providing for amend- ments to the Constitution of the United States. I do so sir, lor the pu pose of uettiui? them be- fore the country and belore the meini)ers of the House, ami ofhaving them pri ted. I wi 1 send them to theCierR's .lesk, that the}' may l^y rea I. If objections be made, I will move a suspension of the rules. The Clerk read Mr. Etheridge's resolution, as follows : A joint resolution providing for amendments to the < onstitiition of the Uniiefl Stales. £e it resolved bti ike /Senate and House of Rep- resentati-ces of tits United Utates of America in CongrfiSH asueinbled, that th.^ following atneiid- mei ts to the C.>nstiiutioii of the Un ted .States he proposed lo the several States for their adop- tion or ratilic ition: AKTICLE 1. Congress Shall have no power to inter'ere with slavery in any of tha States of the Union. ART. i Congress shall have no power to in- terlere with or abolish slavery in any of the navy yards, do.k yards, ursenals, forts, or other idaces ceded to the Uniti d states, within the limits of an.v >tate where slavery exists. ART, 3. Congress shall have no power to in- terfere with or abolish shivery in ihe District of Columbia, without the coiisent of the St.Ttes of Maryland and Vir>;inia; nor without the consentof the inhabitants ol said Di-trict; nor without making just compensation to the owners. Art, 4. Congress shall have no power to pro- hibit the removal or transport ation of slaves from one slave St itc to another siave Siate. Akt ">. The miLrration or iiu.iort tion of iier- sons held to service or labor for life, or a term of years, into any of the States or Territories belonniug to the United States, is ))erpetually prohiliiteii; and Congress shall p.ass ail l^ws necvssary tomake suid (irohih'tion elfoc ive. Art. () In all that part of the territor y of the United States, not in^^iudell within the fimitsof any State, which lies north of the parallel of h6 deg. 30 mm. of north lat tude, slavery or iu- voluntcry S( rvitude, except for crime, whereof the paity shall have been duly convicted, shall be prohibited; and in alUhit territory of the United States, not includi-d within the limits of any State, whch lies south of said parallel of 36 deg. 30 min. of north latitude, neiti.er Con- gress nor any Territorial Le/lsla ure shall h ive power lo pass any law aholish ng piohibiting, or in any manner interfering wiih the ri>;ht to hold slaves; and whenever, in anv ])ortionof the territory (.wijed bv the Uniteil St ites, north or south or -aid p irail^l of 36 deg. 3i) min., there shall he, within an area of not le-!s than sixty thousand sijuai e miles, a population eijuai to the ratio of representi'.tion for a member of Con- gr< s>, the same shall be admitted hy ( ongress into the Union as a State, upon the same foot- ing with the oaginal States in all r< spects what- ever, with or without slavery, as its constitu- tion may determine. AKT. 7. No territory beyond the present lim- its of the United St;:t('s and the Territories theri of shall be hereafter acquired hyoran- nexed to the Unit d states, unle-s the same be done by a concurrent vote of two-thirds of both houses of Congress, or if the same be ac- quired by treaty, by a vote of two-thirds of the Senate. Art. 8. Article four and section two of the Consiituilon at the United States shall be so amended as to read as follows: A person charged, in any Stite. wih treason, lelony or other crime (against the laws of said State), who shall flee from justice and be found in another State, shall, on detriand of the e.x'ecu live au- thority of the State from which he lied, be deliv- erei up, 10 l)e removed to the fctate having ju- risdiciion ot the crime. Article 1. Congress shall never in- terfere with slavery in the slave States. Slavery must therefore be eternal ia these States; for tiiese would never abolish it. Tlie slave-holders of no slave State in this world ever yet consented voluntarially to abolish slavery. It was always done by the strong arm of the government. Art. 2. In dock or navy yards, in arsenals, forts or other places owned by the government of the United States in the slave States, Congress should not abolish slavery. He would have the Federal Govern- ment to become a slave holder and a negro trader in the slave States, and re- main so forever. Art. 4. He is in favor of the trafBc of negroes among the slave States; the buying and selling of negroes like mules and cattle and hogs, tind opposed to all laws prohibiting it. Art. 6. He is in favor of drawing a black line across the United States. AH territory above 36 degrees and 30 min- utes may be free and white — all below must be slave and black. He would bind the .slaves of the slave States with eternal chains. Again, Mr. Etheridge, In a recent speech in this city, in reply to General Stokes, first denied positively that he ever introduced these resolutions in the House of Representatives; but when the record was produced, said that he introduced them because they were the Border States resolutions. But these are the facts: He introduced them because he had been in favor of them for years previously, and because he then was in favor of them. In 1854— first session of tlie 33d Congress, page 835, Appendix — he appealed, in his speech upon this oc- casion, to George W. Jones, of this State, then in iiis seat, if he hatl not been in favor of the Missouri Compromise line as the divisional line between tlie free and slave States, and if he ditl not op- pose the Kansas-Nebraska bill because he believed the bill abrogated this line? In his speech in Congress in 1861— pp. Ill, 115, 3Gth Cong., 2d session, App. to 13 Globe — he said he was in favor, first, of the resolutions which he had introduced as a compromise of our sectional diffi- culties. If he failed to succeed in ob- taininjr these, he next preferred the Crittenden resolutions. Thus, the above resolutions were his preference, which he introduced. ETHERIDGE IN FAVOR OF RETURNING FU- GITIVE STAVES TO THEIR MASTERS. On page 75 of j\IcPherson's Histor5'of the Rebellion you find tlie folio win tj: "A resolution beinfj introduced into the House of Eepresentativps recoaimend- inff to the Northern States to repeal 'their Liberty bills,' or laws preventing fugitive slaves from being returned to their masters, Mr. Etheridge voted for the resolution;" thus proving that he was in favor ot returning the poor fu- gitive slave, in 18GL to his master. Since we cannot find in his resolutions or votes anything to relieve his black record of human slavery, can we find in his speeches a brighter spot? On page 39, Apoendix to the Congressional Globe, 1st session of the Thirty-fourth Congress, in a speech against the Kan- sas-Nebraska bill, he says : I assert that tin- South sramls upon a higher grounil — that we hoUl our slaves liy laws o iler than the coustitutioti, aiirl w ith which the Fed- era Constitut on has nothirg co (l.> except as I shall here.ifttr mention. Shivery ex.sted be- Jore the conbtituiion was I'ornied anrt we do not relj' upon iliiit instrunrenc fur authority to hold our slaves. The true |:o>ition ot the South is, that slaveiy in the States is auttiorizcd by law--ii is ours by adi ptioii. and Mtbject lo the exclusive <'ontrol ot the people amone whom it exists; and that the cons itution carries /t no- where, nor anywhere destroys it He asserts upon this occasion that the right of tlie slaveholder to his propertj^ in his fellow man is older than, and in- dependent of the Constitution of the United States; and tliat the slave can only be set free by the consent of his master — which means he is to remain in chains and slavery till doomsday. For when did the slaveholder ever wil- lingly consent to emancipate his slaves? Never in the world's history. THE SLAVE HAS NO LEGAL RIGHTS. On page 1.49S, Congressional Globe, part 2, 1st session, 36th Congress,! 859 and 1860, in a speech made on the Utali Bill, Mr. Etheridge boldly asserts that the slave is no citizen of the United States, and that he has no rights under the con- stitution — not even the sacred one of husband and wife, father or child — yet are punislied for all crimes the)'' niay commit. If Mr. Etheridge was a friend to the poor slave, why did he not, when a member of tlie Legislature of Ten- nessee, introduce a bill for the gradual emancipntion of slaves in this State, or a bill declaring the inviolable sanctity of the marriage relations between slaves— of husband and wife, of father and child ? THE HOMESTEAD BILL. On the 2d of March, 1854, tlie House of Eepresentatives having resolved itself into a Committee of tlie Wliolc on the state of the Union, Mr. Olds in the chair, the chairman said : When the coroinit'ee last rose, ther had under coQsid raion speciil order of the House, being House bill (No. 37) "to ei. courage agriculture, commerce, niamifactures, and all other branch- es of indusiry, by gi anting to rvery man who is the head of a lamily and a citizen bt the United States, a homestead of oui* hundred and sixty acres of land out of the public domain, upon condition oi occupancy and cultivHtion of the same for the perio'1 herein sp- ciflei. On the 3d of March, 1854, durinsr the pendency of the bill before the House, Mr. Etheridge rose from his seat and said : I move the following as an additional section in the bdl : Sec — And be it further enacted. That the pro- vision-i ot this act shad never le held or deemed to app'y to !inv person or persons, ex( ept native born citizens of the United State» . and such other persons as arc now natuializeil, and to such other person or persons as, at the time ol the pas-age of this .-ct. sha'l have filed their de- claration of intention to become naturalize' I cit- izens accrdiuif to existing laws r'KUhitingthe miide and manner of naturaliz ng loreigners, and to no other person or persons lehomsoerer. Why did the Radical Union ptirty, mj'' colored friends, give you these rights? Because you were true to the flag, true to the Union, and true to the Union men and P'ederal soldiers. THE REASON OF HIS ANTIPATHY AND HA- TRED TO FOREIGNERS. Mr. Etheridge having, on the 21st ot December, upon the fioor of the House of Representatives, been called upon by Mr. Burnett, of Kentucky, to state whether or not he was a member of the Know-Nothing or American party, said : I have no hestitation in ini'orming the gentle- man from Kentucky [ Mr Burnc it], that, after the Philadeip'dapratform was made, linitorsed itieioremy < oiistinients as contain n^' princi- ples tc/iieh no party in this country had ever seriously disputed. — .App. to Cong. Globi-, p. 40.) The 6th and Sth resolutions of the Know-Nothing platform ot 1855 areas follows : 6. The essential modification of thenatiiraliza- tion laws. The repeal b}' the Legislatures of the re-pec- tive Stn.tes,of alt State laws 1 owii5g foreignei'.s not naturalized to vote. The repeal, Mitbout retrospective operat on, of al( acts of Congress mafeing urants of land to unnaturalized for- eigners, an(.l allowing them to vote in tne ter- ritorie<. 8. Resistance to the aggtessive policy and corupting tendenci.s ot the Koman Catholic Church in our couitiy by the advancement lo all polit'cal stations— executive, legi.-lat.ve, judicial, or dipio;uatic— of those only who do not hold civil iiile. lance, directly or iiidirectly, to any foreign power, whether oivil or ecclesi- astical, and whi are Americans I. y birth, edu- cation, iiid training — thus fultillingthe maxim, " Americans only shall govern America." Mr. Etheridge. in 1856, was still a member of the Know-Nothing party, and took t]ie stump in this Statf lor the nominees and platform of tlie Pliiladel- phia Convention. The following are a portion of the resolutions constituting the platform of 1856: 31. American- must rule America, and to th''s end. native-born citiz n-. shou'd be .-tie -ted for all Sta e, Fed-r.d. and munic pal oilices or government employment, in preference to all others. sen. An eniorcemr nt of the pr nciple that no State or TerritO'v ought t> admit others than citizens ot the Unted States to the rigiic of suffrnge, or 01 holding political office. 9th. A chanae in the luws of n^n.uralizTti'^n, muking a continued residence of twenty-one years, of ali not hoieinbelore provideil lor, an indi-pensable requisite for citizenship here- after. Tlius we have proven from the records that Mr. Etheridge was opposed to col- ored people, whether they were soldiers in our revolutionary war,or in the war of 1812, or in the recent rebeliion, as well as their wives and children, enjoying the benefits of our national dbtnaiir. Yes, not only those were to be excluded from V.oraesteads in our national terri- tory, which they may have pored out 14 their heart's blood to acquire, but rJso all foreigners who niisfht eraiorrate to our country after 1856, thoutrh they should become Fed- eral soldiers in 1862, and li^ht in the sacred cause of preservino^ the Union and our constitutional liberty. He v^as in favor of not fjrantine: torei^ners the rights of citizenship till they remained here loj'al residents for tvvent)'-one years, and he opposed their voting or iioldingollice till they were citizens; nor um.er any circumstances was he •willing that future immigrants should enjo}^ the benctlts of the Homestead bill. A few days after Mr. Etheridge introduced his resolution excluding all future foreigners from enjoying the benfits of the Homestead bill, in reply to Mr. Cox from Ohio, and aKepresen- tative from Pennsylvania, said if the gentlemen wished to exclude all future foreigners from the benefits of the Homstead bill, why not vote for my re- solution, which accomplislies the ob- iect? (See pages 111 to 115. App. Con. 'Globe. 2d Sess. 36th Cong., 1861. Also, see, for the above facts, Mc. C. P. B. pp. 55 and 56.) His hostility to foreigners, even to the present day, is proven by the con- temptuous manner in which he speaks of them in the following letter to Pres- ident Johnson, published in the St. Louis Kepublican, July 19, 1865: I W.I-; ar. esteil at my home on last Friday, hy a det.'ichmer.t of ted mc .as JMr Adderrig, from which. I i IxT, they claim a lager beer nation ality. 1 deem ii my (Uitj^ to report that ynur old (rends of the sfcesh pcrsiia^ioa srill per- sist in thd teasor.ahtj pi actice of calling the personnel of such evperlitious "d— d Mutoh and nigger--." You wdl doubtless be relieved to hear that the expedition was a success. ethridge's union record. It is true that Mr. Etheridge, in a speech at the court house in the city ot Kashville, about the 2d of March. 1862, denounced in the most violent and ma- levolent manner all soldiers and citizens who were engaged in the then existing rebellion ; and further said that there was no punishment known to the laws they should not receive. (See Nash- ville Banner of this date.) Again. I know, in a speech delivered by him in the Congress of the United States in 1861, he denounced the rebel- lion as the most unwarrantable and un- justifiable in tlie world's history, stating ill said speech "that he intended to leave those halls and return home, and vnth a itvjord in one hand and a torch in the other, he intended to confront re- bellion, and as long as the stars and stripes waved over any portion of his State he would never bow tiie knee to disunion.'' [See i)ages 114 and 115, App. to Cong. Globe, 36tii Cong., 2d Sess.] Here'we have Don Quixote Etheridge, De La Jtancha, threatening with sword and turcli the utter extermination of the poor rebels — slaughtering all day, and b\" torcli light all night. Perhaps he intended to slay with one 1 and and burn v/ith the other. O, for another Cervai\tes to write and commit to im- mort.ality tlie renowned achievements of this redoubtable knight. Well, he did return home; but upon the first roar of the Lion of the forests he gracefully yielded the championship of carnage-covered fields to the "gallant boys in blue," and ensconced himself in the clerkship of the House of Repre- sentatives, and not one scalp of all the rebels did lie remain to capture, etheridge's record of treason. On tlie 18th of February, 1861. Mr. Stanton, of Ohio, introduced a bill giv- ing to the President the power to call out the militia of the several States, a.* well as employ the military and naval forces ot the United States, to suppress the insurrection which had already commenced. Mr. Etheridge voted first to reject the bill; secondly, to lay it on. the table: and thirdly, to postpone it. (See McPherson's His, of E., pages 77 and 78.) Again, on the 20th of February, 18G1, wdien the naval appropriation bill for the construction of a certain class of screw sloops, with an amendment which had been adopted by the Senate in Com- mittee of the Whole, and which was urged as indispensable to suppress the rebellion, came up for final action in the House of Representatives, it passed — yeas 114 — all the friends of the Union, voting for it ; nays 38— Etheridge voting against it. Again, a bill was introduced by Mr. Bingham, of Ohio, January 3d, 1860, from the Committee on the Judiciary, for the employment of the mlllria and the land and naval forces to provide for the collection of duties in the rebel ports, and upon a motion on the 2d of March, to suspend the rule and take up the bill, as immediate action in relation to it was indispensable to the government, Mr. Etheridge voted in a vast minority asrainst the bill, thus defeating the gov- ernment. (See McP. Hist, of R., pp. 77, 78-88.) Again, immediately after his de- feat for the Clerkship in the House of Representatives, in 1863, he disclosed the true animus of the man. lie then abandoned the Republican party, who were successfully conducting the war, denounced it with President Lincoln, Mr. Seward, Andrew Johnson and all tlie other friends of the administration, in the most unmeasured terms of re- proach and contempt— joined the Mc- Clellan-Copperhead party, who de- clared in their national platform that the war was a failure and that the lie- publican administration and party had usurped and exercised the most tyran- nical power, subversive of the constitu- tion and the laws of the land, and that peace with the rebels should be imme- diately concluded. Etheridge not only belonged to this party, which contained all the elements of opposition to the im- mediate supi)ression of the rebellion, but from a letter written by him, pend- ing his election to the Clerkship, to Mr, Voorhees. of Indiana, then President of a secret society called the Golden Circle, he identifies himself with this organ- ized and armed rebel association, which was proven to be in close alliance with the Confederate rebels in Canada, to lib- erate rebel prisoners of war and over- throw the government. Again, his disloyalty to his govern- ment is further proved by his incendia- ry speeches made at Dresden and Treu- 15 ton, ^ in this State, in 1865, in which spef^hes cand resolutions adopted upon said occasion he bohlly declared that the Eiuancipation Proclamation of Presi- dent Lincoln and the laws of this State emancipatinof the slaves were unconsti- tutional and void, and should not be observed ! as well as that the State Gov- ernment then existing was an usurpa- tion, and ail laws passed by it a nullity. Gen. Thomas said, in relation to the trial of ilie said Etherido^e upon charges of incendiary and treasonable conduct upon the above occasion, "that althoujyh the court has failed to do justice (in his acquittal), tlie evidence and findings clearly establish the guilt of the accus- ed. (See proceedings of the court mar- tial and General Thomas' letter in the Daily Press and Times of May 2Stb, 1867.) Again, his disloyalty is further proved from his present incendiary and revolutionary speeches, as the candidate for the Guijernatorial chair of this State, and from his accepting the nomi- nation from those — nine-tenths of whom constitute a party whom, five years ago, he denounced as traitors to the government, and wliom then he wished to 'exterminate with the sword and torch. ETHERIDGE OX REBEL, RENEGADES. Mr. Etheridge denounces Gov. Brown- low, Gen. Stokes, myself, with almost every other Union gentleman ot this State, as rebel renegades. Thank you, Jew, for this word. Kenegade, derived either from the French or Latin, means literally one who rejects or renounces a particular faith. Therefore a rebel renegade is one who renounces and re- jects treason and traitors. Hence our antipathy to you, Mr. Etheridge. Be- sides we prefer to be a rebel renegade to a Union renegade. Saul ot Tarsus, from his education, associations and blind prejudice persecuted his Savior and liis disciples; but overwhelmed by the divine lightof truth and his honest convictions, confessed his error and sacriftced his life for his God and his disciples. St. Peter, intimidated by an armed mob, temporarilj^ denied his beloved Savior; but returning in true allegiance and love, suffered mart3'rdoni for hini. Judas Iscariot, who was the recipient of the confidence and love of ■ his Savior, betraye*! him to be crucified to his foes for thirty pieces of silver and never repented. Who would not prefer to be a Saul or a St. Peter to Judas Iscariot? Judas did receive his reward of treason; but, Mr. Etiieridge, you will not be elected to the Guberna- torial chair of this State, nor ever afjain hold a position of ofhcial respectability and honor. Let us turn away from the further contemplation of tiiis repulsive picture, to one refulgent with the liglit of truth, charity, honesty and patriotism. We allude to GOVERXOR BROWXLOW As a Christian, who has been more un- wavering in his fidelity, or pructiced in a more exemplary manner, its manj^ virtues and graces? Was there ever a truer friend or a more obliging and kind neighbor, or a more forgiving enemy? What drop ofiiinocent blood ever spotted his name or encrimsoned his conscience ? What act of violenco or persecution ever blurred liis reputation? We defy pre- judice, passion or malevolence to desig- nate one. I know he writes and speaks sometimes bitterlj% but never acts only in mercy and kindness. In the riots of Memphis and Johnsonville, in the assas- sinations of his political friends in Obion and Henry counties, as well as in other portions of this State, we challenge his opponents to instance one act of his, cliaracteiized by tyranny, barbarity or malevolence. He has reprieved more convicts than any other Governor of this State, save, perhaps, Andrew John- son. He has solicited from • the Presi- dent the pardon of more rebels than the Governor of any other State. In his political creed and associations he was an Old Line Whig; and to its national principles of paramount alle- giance to the Union and constitution he gave an immaculate devotion. If he contended with zeal and persistence for the peculiar institutions of his na- tive South, he but reflected then the opinions and sentiments of every Chris- tian church in t'le South, the editors of every newspaper, and the legislators, judges and leading statesmen of every Southern State. Although he loved the institutions and the people of the South with an ai-dent afiection, yet he loved his whole country more. His escutcli- eon as a patriot is untarnished — lUs fidelity to his countr^^ its constitution and laws, is without a pause or a blem- ish. In the political administration of the State as its Governor, he presents the same unique picture of honesty, energy and fidelity. By the aid and assistance of his Kepublican Legislature and friends, against tlie bitter aspersions of their opponents, he has restored the State of Tennessee to its constitutional relations with tlie Federal Government; he has re-established the judiciary, and with it, as mucli as possible, law" fiftd order, and the vast material interests of thecountrj-; by liberal State aid he saved our vast railroad system from ut- ter bankruptcy ; he saved, by judicious legislation, the State credit; he cheer- fully co-operated with the Federal Gov- ernment in the emancipation of the colored race, and by wise and timely legislation established his civil and po- litical riglits in this State, upon an en- during basis. With regard to the financial economy of his administration, we refer to tlie unanswerable array of facts contained in his own recent address to the people of this State, the letters of Gen. Thomas, his Private Secretary, and the very able and conclusive speech of the Secretary of State, the Hon. A. J. Fletcher, deliv- ered at Cleveland, East Tennessee, all of which have recently been published in the Press and Times of this city. Fellow citizens, a few words addition- al and I will conclude. THE WAR is over. The hurtling storm of the rebellion is over, and the murmuring winds that fol- low are only by the ligiitning warm. O, never again may civil war like a "burning comet, lire our heavens, and 16 shake from its horricl hair pestilence and death !" O, never ao:ain may dis- tracted and di:«severed States, in dread disorder rushinjr, be impelled so far Irom our F(=deral system, or lose the cheerino: and invigorating heat of their solar orb! Were it not for memories so dear, re- trospections so accnrsed. recollections that sadden and still sicken the feeling heart, we might almost bless the con- vulsion that gave the rebellion birth; for our beloved country, like a fortress, proud and invulnerable, has emerged above the billow and tlie surge, and the genius of American Constitutional Lib- erty, rekindling her torch at the urn of an universal hiiinanity, has replumed her wings for her loftiest flight. In the ubiquity of her benevolence she now embraces the child of every race, the votary of every creed, and the citizen of every clime. Gentlemen, we do not intend to-night to re-open wounds which we wish cicatrized forever; rather we would in- vite you to a banquet of fraternal for- giveness and love. O. yes, let us gather vip our prejudices, passions and animos- ities, and consume them together upon the altar of our common country. Are not individual concessions and sacrifi- ces national strength ? and on this earth is there a holier altar than one's own country ? Man is strong only by union, and happy only by peace. But there can be no Union and peace, without law, liberty and traternity. It is not only honoi--i1)le, but it is God-like to govern in kindness, to erect the fabric of government upon tlie everlasting basis of justice and affection. A kind Providence had gradually led our be- loved country to a dizzy height of na- tiosial prosperity and greatness, and we had become the wonder and admiration of the nations of the earth. But to advance farther we could not, without a radical revolution. There was a loathsome cancer that had fastened itself upon the very vitals of tlie re|)ul^lic, poisoning and cankering its mighty heart, which must be removed — and that was human slavery. But how ctnild this institution, so revolting to justice and humanity, be eradicated? Could tlie mild and per- suasive precepts of a Christian philan- thropy, or the logical deductions of a rational philoso|>liy achieve it? Alas! our holy religion, wliich should rob the world of its sigiis and sorrows — unite, not sepiirate — reconcile, not irritate — heal, not wound — throughout the North and the South, had toimed adulterous connections with the political, moral and pltilosophic dogmas and creeds of the day. " i)o!lutiiig the purity of heaven "with the abominations of earth, andhjinging the tatters of a hypocriti- cal politieai piety upon tlie cross of an insulted Savior." Therctore, Cliristian philanthropy, which had been thus sub- sidized and subordinated, conldt not burst the manacles of the slave. Could the majiistic march of the intel- lect, the progress of the immortal ideas of advanced civilization, based upon the eternal principles of liberty and hu- manity, peacefully overthrow this hor- rible institution? These, aided by Christianity, had obliterated slavery from the map of Europe— had extin- guished it in the British isles of the ocean — had driven it from Mexico. Cen- tral and South America, except Brazil, and all the North American States, save fourteen. In these fourteen Southera States slavery seemed throned on the granite of ages. Alas! how impotent these mild instrumentalities were to batter down the formidable bulwarks with which a vitiated religion and phil- osophy — with which avarice, wealth and the love of domination and ease- had entrenched and fortilled it. Be- side, slavers'^ in these States had the os- tensible sanction and protection of the Federal Government. But fall this institution must. I care not how fortified by wisdom, wealth or power — how seemingly throned ou eternity. For the Almighty is the mighy pastor of the generations of men, and from man's first disobedience and the loss of Eden, he has been con- ducting the nations of the earth, step by step, onward and upward to a more ex- alted sphere of human beatitude and perfectibilit3^ He ruleth in the king- dome of the world as he does in the heavens, and he has said '"thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself; thou shalt do unto others a£ you would have others do unto you." Here human slavery was thy doom, and not the wealth of a^rorld's commerce, nor the successful achievements of all this earth's wisdom or heroism could have secured, the permanency of your establishment. Thus, when th at onuii fie spiri tot progress which had transformed societies and governments, "written all the books — invented all arts, discovered all worlds and founded all civilizations," could not by its peaceful agencies subvert the institution of slavery in its strongest hold in America,, it did witU a Titan's grasp seize the volcanic thunder-bolts of Revolution and flinder it to atoms. Thus gentlemen, we have been uncon- ciously the good and evil instrumentali- ty to work out in carnage and desolation our political, social and moral redemp- tion — to establish upon a more endur- ing basis the eternal principles of rec- titude, of humanity and fraternity. Let us now forgive and be forgiven — let us return to our altar of American consti- tutional liberty, with more fervid devo- tion, with a patriotism which no temp- tations of earth can ever again seduce or alienate. Let us remember the past as Signs sunt bv Goil, to marx tl'e w.ll ol' Heaveu, SipDS which "bid nations weep, an J be lo .-given. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS