and abandoned politicians of both the old parties that have always been found ready to sacrifice the country to help themselves, but never to sacrifice themselves to help the country, not so much for their punishment, as for the peace, harmony, security, and welfare of the country-although I know the loss of political power is to them the severest infliction that could be imposed, next to the loss of life; for, as to property, few of the most rabid have any thing to lose. If the masses should in the end be treated unkindly, let them thank these leaders for it, and then thank themselves for supporting, instead of rebuking them for their folly and bold defiance.

"Astor House, May 12, 1866.

"To the Members of the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States: “GENTLEMEN,—I feel that if any one in private life has a right, without presumption, to address the loyal representative men of this nation upon a subject we are all alike interested in, that I might venture to do so without offense, and without rendering myself obnoxious to the charge of vanity.

"I have no personal favors to ask at the hands of any one. I have no 'axe to grind.' I am a candidate or applicant for no office. I desire no preferment. I belong to no political organization. I am entirely free to throw the weight of any little influence I may be able to command in favor of such men and such measures as my judgment my approve, and against such as that judgment may condemn. I can therefore afford to be honest, to be truthful, independent, and patriotic, and I may be excused for saying that I occupy a stand-point I think free from all prejudice and passion, which are too apt to have their influence, and to control the action of those who are surrounded by a constantly overheated political atmosphere. But while I belong to no political organization, my sympathies, affinities, and co-operation are, as they always have been, entirely with the unconditional Union men of the country.

May I therefore be permitted to ask your calm and deliberate attention to the views presented below. The difficulty of seeing and conversing with each member in private is my reason for adopting this public mode of communication.

"Twelve years ago I addressed myself, as now, from this house to Congress against the repeal of the Missouri Compromise, the bitter fruits of which we are now all tasting. I hope this will not pass unheeded, as did my urgent entreaties then. Very respectfully, your obedient servant, "JOHN M. BOTTS."

R

Objections to the Report of the Reconstruction Committee.

1st. It makes no provision for the relief of the Union white men of the South, but leaves them and the state governments in the hands of the unreconstructed rebels for the next four years, who will improve the opportunity to educate the people without restraint to a more embittered spirit of disaffection and disloyalty to the government of the United States, and in four years we shall hardly have a loyal man left in the South; selfpreservation will drive them into the ranks of the other party, and the Southern States will constitute an element of weakness rather than of strength to the government.

2d. The disfranchisement proposed is made to depend upon the grade of office held, instead of the grade of offense committed, and is limited to the higher classes of officers, civil and military, the latter including all over the rank of colonel, leaving all the guerrilla chiefs and their subordinate officers, to say nothing of privates—all of whom would have been generals if they could, many of whom too committed the greatest atrocities of the war-free hereafter to participate in the councils of the nation. It also leaves those who voted in convention for ordinances of secessionwhich was a declaration of war against the United States, and in the absence of which there would have been no rebellion-likewise free. It imposes no disqualification upon those mischievous politicians who for thirty years have been stirring up disaffection and rebellion among the people. Nor does it in any degree affect the sympathizers with and co-operators in the rebellion in the Northern States, who are, if possible, more guilty and more obnoxious than those in the South.

3d. The bill proposed can not receive the President's sanction, nor is the Constitutional Amendment at all likely to receive the approval of the necessary number of state Legislatures.

4th. It is extremely improbable that any Southern state will adopt the conditions prescribed, and four years hence we shall be as far from reconstruction as we are now.

I suggest, therefore, that all these difficulties may be remedied by a simple legislative enactment, which might probably receive the President's assent, and, if not, might be carried by a two-thirds vote of both houses. I propose, then, in substitution for the report of the committee, that it shall be declared by law,

That no person hereafter shall be capable of holding any office, legislative, executive, or judicial, in the Federal or state governments, for ten

years from the passage of the act, who was over the age of twenty-five at the breaking out of the rebellion, without taking the following oath in addition to that now required of all such officers by the Constitution of the United States:

"I, A. B., do solemnly swear that I have not, since the twentieth day of December, 1860 (the date of the Ordinance of Secession of South Carolina), voluntarily taken up arms against the United States, nor have I advised or encouraged others to do so; that I have not sought or held office under the Confederate States government, or of that of any state in rebellion, with a view in any manner to aid the rebellion; that I have not said, written, or done any thing designed, or of a nature calculated to alienate the affections or allegiance of the people from the government of the United States; nor have I otherwise given aid and comfort to the rebellion."

Let this enactment be accompanied with an absolute remission in all cases of the forfeiture of life, liberty, and property, for the crimes committed by and under the authority of those in rebellion; and let it also be declared that if it shall be ascertained that any person has sworn falsely to obtain or hold any office hereby prohibited, such office shall be absolutely vacated, and the party held liable to a prosecution for perjury.

If this plan should be adopted, every loyal citizen would be subjected to the test prescribed before he could hold a legislative, executive, or judicial office, while those of thirty and under who had borne arms against the country would be relieved of such obligations. It would be manifestly proper, therefore, that an oath should be provided for them which would have only a prospective operation, and I suggest the following:

"I, A. B., do solemnly swear that I recognize the Constitution of the - United States, and all laws made in pursuance thereof, as the supreme law of the land, and that I am bound thereby, any state law, Constitution, or ordinance, or convention to the contrary notwithstanding; and that I regard all laws of the United States as binding on the citizens thereof, until declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the United States. That I regard the first obligation of allegiance of the citizen as due to the United States, and not to any component part thereof; and I will hereafter observe and obey the laws, and protect the flag of my country when lawfully called upon to do so."

This would be what Mr. Johnson would call an "intelligent treason," not holding to responsibility the boys and young men, who were misled and dragged in by older, more experienced, and more wicked men, nor

those who were forced in by conscription, and would leave all now thirty years of age and under to fill the offices, state and Federal, who, with the Union men, would constitute a majority of the whole in most if not all of the states; and the regenerated under thirty-one would naturally attach themselves to the government that had thus restored them, and aid in circulating a spirit of loyalty throughout the South, and their numbers would daily increase, while the other party would decline in a still greater ratio.

Twelve months ago every rebel in the South would have rejoiced at the proffer of such terms. It is due to the nation-due to posterity and mankind-that some penalty should be visited on those who were wickedly guilty, to prevent a repetition of the offense at a future day. Now is the time to establish a precedent, and so mild a penalty was never before exacted for so grave a crime-complete restoration and amnesty, only withholding for ten years political power from those who had voluntarily and treacherously surrendered and abandoned it. Upon the passage of this law reconstruction would be absolute and immediate, upon a basis of unquestioned loyalty; the state governments would be placed in the hands of loyal men; the chief cause of dissension between the President and Congress would be withdrawn; harmony in the public councils would be restored; the more guilty would be mildly punished, and the balance relieved of responsibility; and not the least of the advantages of this mode of settlement would be that it withdraws the question of reconstruction from the next election. If the President should sanction it, and Congress reject it, it would indicate that they had some ulterior object in view, and a disposition to delay unreasonably a restoration upon a loyal basis, which would severely damage the Union party; while, on the other hand, if Congress should adopt it, and the President reject it, it would strongly indicate on his part a desire to restore to power those clements of disloyalty North and South which have brought such desolation and ruin upon the country, of which many now (but I do not) suspect him.

MR. LINCOLN AND HIS POLICY.

So much injustice has been done to the memory of Mr. Lincoln, and such unfair and unfounded representations made in regard to the responsibility for the late rebellion-especially made in a work that has lately, and for the first time, fallen under my observation, called "The Democratic Almanac," published in the city of New York, for the year 1866, I presume for Southern consumption-that I should feel my task incom

plete if I did not add a brief synopsis of the course of policy pursued by Mr. Lincoln, chiefly for the benefit of my Southern readers, who, by the events of the war and the necessary interruption of communication between the two sections, were cut off from all knowledge of what was transpiring in Washington, and were limited in their reading to the complexion given to all things as they found it in the Southern press, which, for the most part, studiously suppressed the publication of whatever might contribute to a more favorable feeling toward those whom they had been taught to believe were their persecutors and oppressors, and substituted for it such imaginary pictures as ingenuity could devise to fire the Southern heart, frenzy the Southern mind, and whet the appetite for blood.

In the performance of this task, I begin with what is already to be found in the body of this work, to wit, the platform adopted by the Republican party in 1860 at the Chicago Convention, which nominated Mr. Lincoln. On the question of slavery it reads, "That the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the states, and especially the right of each state to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depends; and we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any state or territory, no matter under what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes."

This declaration of principles-so much misrepresented in 1860, '61, throughout the South-of itself effectually disposes of the charge in the aforesaid "Democratic Almanac," to be found on p. 17 of said book, which declares that Mr. Lincoln was elected as the representative of a party which had resolved that "slavery must be abolished, if not by the fear of the sword, then by the sword itself; and again, that the "Republican party" had declared, “Against slaveholders as a body we wage an exterminating war. "If the negroes had a chance, they would be delighted to cut their masters' throats." "Slaveholders, it is for you to determine whether we are to have justice (i. e., emancipation) peaceably or by violence; for whatever consequences may follow, we are determined to have it, one way or another."

Next, as to Mr. Lincoln himself. This article in the "Democratic Almanac" seems to have been written for the purpose of again "firing the Southern heart," of which folly we have had quite enough already, and of keeping a party in alliance with treason, by operating upon the ignorant and uninformed. It contains so much trashy nonsense that is known to its Northern readers to be utterly false and unfounded, that I instinctively shrink from