A Bold avowal.
When the Missouri controversy was raging, Rufus King, one of the ablest and purest men ever sent to the National Councils by any Northern State--himself the author of the resolutions — scornfully rejected all imputations of superior humanity, and boldly declared that the struggle was for power and for nothing else. Thad. Stevens, without, probably, designing to be very honest, made a similar avowal in the Committee of the Whole the other day. The following are the words he used, if his speech be correctly reported:"In the Territories, Congress fixes the qualifications of electors, and I know of no better place nor better occasion for the conquered rebels and the conqueror to practice justice to all men, and accustom themselves to make and to obey all laws. As to these famed rebels, they cannot, at their option, re-enter the heaven which they have disturbed, nor the garden of Eden which they have deserted, as flaming swords are set at the gates to secure their exclusion. It becomes important to the nation to inquire when the doors shall be opened for their admission. According to my judgment, they ought never to be recognized as capable of acting in the Union, or being counted as valid States, until the Constitution shall have been so amended as to make it what its framers intended, so as to secure a perpetual ascendency to the party of the Union and so as to render republican government firm and stable forever.
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"If they should grant the right of suffrage to persons of color. I think there would always be Union white men enough in the South, aided by the blacks, to divide the representation, and thus continue the Republican ascendancy. If they should reuse thus to alter their election laws, it would reduce the representatives of the late slave States to about forty-five, and render them powerless for evil. It is plain that this amendment must be consummated before the defunct States are admitted to be capable of States action, or it never can be.
"The whole number of representative now from the slave States is seventy. Add the other two-fifths, and it will be eighty-three. If the amendment prevails, and the States withhold the right of suffrage from persons of color, it will deduct about thirty-seven, leaving them but forty-five. With the apportionment unchanged, the eighty-three Southern members, with the Democrats that will in the best times be elected from the North, will always give them a majority in Congress and in the Electoral College. They will, at the very first election, take possession of the White House and the halls of Congress. I need not depict the scene that would follow."
The words italicised at the end of the first paragraph contain the whole pith of the speech. "To secure a perpetual ascendancy to the Republican party" is the object of all these violent revolutionary movements. Party goes with Thad. a long way before the Union. He does not hesitate to break down the Union in order to insure the success of his party. What a wonderful statesman! What a pure public man!
President Johnson thinks differently; his doctrine is, perish party, save the Union; and of course he is consigned by Thad. to the "execration of history."
The scene which Thad. declines to draw of the condition of affairs likely to exist should the Democrats come in, is well calculated to horrify the radicals. If these radicals love the spoils as well as Horace Greeley says they do, it will be a sad day for them, no doubt.
