A Just and Lasting Peace: A Documentary History of Reconstruction by John David Smith Page B

produce—will not the God of Liberty and order give us—such men? Will not a Romulus, a Lycurgus, a Charlemagne, a Washington arise, whose expansive views will found a free empire, to endure till time shall be no more?
    This doctrine of Restoration shocks me. We have a duty to perform which our fathers were incapable of, which will be required at our hands by God and our Country. When our ancestors found a “more perfect Union” necessary, they found it impossible to agree upon a Constitution without tolerating, nay, guaranteeing, Slavery. They were obliged to acquiesce, trusting to time to work a speedy cure, in which they were disappointed.
They
had some excuse, some justification. But we can have none if we do not thoroughly eradicate Slavery and render it forever impossible in this republic. The Slave power made war upon the nation. They declared the “more perfect Union” dissolved—solemnly declared themselves a foreign nation, alien to this republic; for four years were in fact what they claimed to be. We accepted the war which they tendered and treated them as a government capable of making war. We have conquered them, and as a conquered enemy we can give them laws; can abolish all their municipal institutions and form new ones. If we do not make those institutions fit to last through generations of freemen, a heavy curse will be on us. Our glorious, but tainted republic has been born to new life through bloody, agonizing pains. But this frightful “Restoration” has thrown it into “cold obstruction, and to death.” If the rebel States have never been out of the Union, any attempt to reform their State institutions, either by Congress or the President, is rank usurpation.
    Is then all lost? Is this great conquest to be in vain? That will depend upon the virtue and intelligence of the next Congress. To Congress alone belongs the power of Reconstruction—of giving law to the vanquished. This is expressly declared by the Supreme Court of the United States in the Dorr case, 7th Howard, 42. The Court say, “Under this article of the Constitution (the 4th) it rests with Congress to decide what government is the established one in a State, for the United States guarantees to each a republican form of government,” et cetera. But we know how difficult it will be for a majority of Congress to overcome preconceived opinions. Besides, before Congress meets, things will be so inaugurated—precipitated—it will be still more difficult to correct. If a majority of Congress can be found wise and firm enough to declare the Confederate States a conquered enemy, Reconstruction will be easy and legitimate; and the friends of freedom will long rule in the Councils of the Nation. If Restoration prevails the prospect is gloomy, and new “lords will make new laws.” The Union party will be overwhelmed. The Copperhead party has become extinct with Secession. But with Secession it will revive. Under “Restoration” every rebel State will send rebels to Congress; and they, with their allies in the North, will control Congress, and occupy the White House. Then restoration of laws and ancient Constitutions will be sure to follow, our public debt will be repudiated, or the rebel National debt will be added to ours, and the people be crushed beneath heavy burdens.
    Let us forget all parties, and build on the broad platform of “reconstructing” the government out of the conquered territory converted into new and free States, and admitted into the Union by the sovereign power of Congress, with another plank—“THE PROPERTY OF THE REBELS SHALL PAY OUR NATIONAL DEBT,
and indemnify freed-men and loyal sufferers
—and that under no circumstances will we suffer the National debt to be repudiated, or the interest scaled below the contract rates; nor permit any part of the rebel debt to be assumed by the nation.”
    Let all who approve of these