the Southern States better off for Republican rule? Has that party done any thing beneficial to the North or West? Our grinding taxes and the sad demoralization of the country are the direct result of their coming into power. Have morals and religion improved, or are the laws better respected and obeyed? The reverse is true. Few will insist that our enormous public debt is a blessing. No one will pretend that our currency, which neither our public ministers abroad, nor our people when visiting other parts of the world can use, nor our Government at the custom-houses, will take, is an improvement upon the Jackson gold currency. No one will rejoice over the death of our brave volunteers. Then it is inevitably true that in no way has the country been benefited by the Republicans coming into power. In no respect are our people as contented and happy as before Mr. Lincoln came into office. As far as that party can do it, democratic principles have been ignored, blotted out; and to entertain and practise them is rendered criminal in a portion of the Union. When Mr. Lincoln became President, we had thirty-three States (three more have been added since)-but ten have been repudiated, driven out, and cease to be counted. Republican rule has lost these ten States to the Union. Is that a blessing? Ten stars have dropped from our flag as the fruit of Republican ascendency. But this is not all. Senator Hendricks, of Indiana, thus pithily enumerates other wrongs brought upon the country by this party:

"1. You have made ten States subject to military authority. 2. You have made the civil tribunals subject to military rule. 3. The lives, liberty, and persons of the people are subject to military authority. 4. Juries are abolished. 5. Habeas corpus is abolished; I mean, of course, at the pleasure of the military commanders. 6. You have clothed conventions with authority to fix their own salaries and levy taxes from the people for their payment. 7. You have empowered the commanders to displace. Governors, judges, and legislators, and fill their places, thus making them dependent on the will of the commanders. What a spectacle we behold, sir! The judge taken from the bench, and the lieutenant placed in his stead! Legislators driven out, and others appointed by the military to make the laws which the peo

ple must obey! Sir, what were the causes of complaint which the colonies made against the British crown? Speaking of the King of Great Britain, our fathers declared:

'He has made judges dependent on his will alone for the tenure of their offices and the amount and payment of their salaries.

'He has kept among us in times of peace standing armies, without the consent of our Legislatures.

'He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to the civil power.

For imposing taxes on us without our consent.

'For depriving us in many cases of the benefit of trial by jury.''

These quotations from the Declaration of Independence aptly describe the doings of the Republicans in Congress and the military rule that they have established. Congress has done what our fore fathers charged upon a British king as a crime, fully authorizing them to throw off the yoke of tyranny.

After considering what the Republican party has done, and what it has omitted, no candid man can say that the country has been benefited by its coming into power, but, on the contrary, it has been largely and seriously injured. How long will the people be content that the present state of things shall continue? This is a question for the people to settle. They have now a thousand unsettled questions, where they had one before the war.

136.-ARE NOT ALL THE STATES IN DANGER?

The broad ground is now assumed that all the States must have governments republican in form, and that Congress has the power to determine whether they are in such form or not. If it shall be of opinion that any one is not in such form, then Congress claims it can coerce and compel it to adopt such a form as it may see fit to require. It is not the people of a State, but Congress, which prescribes the standard and forces States into conformity with caucus dictation. Maryland was one of the original thirteen colonies, and afterward States, and has produced its full proportion of able, wise, and patriotic men. It has just now been

discovered, by a Republican member of Congress from that State, who has been most of his days in public life, that the constitution of the State is not republican in form. A committee of the House has been inquiring into the matter. But we have not seen a report from it. The plan of operations shadowed forth was this: Congress should inquire whether the constitution of Maryland was republican in form, and if in its opinion it was not, then the State should be denied representation in Congress until it should amend its constitution, and conform it to the standard of the Republican party. If it should be ruled out as a State, it would seem to be a natural consequence that Congress should institute a military government until it should comply with the demands of Congress. Of course, Congress can do in every other State-if it dared to-what it could in Maryland. The principles avowed by Congress, and which are now being acted upon, would authorize it to compel every State to modify its constitution and form of government so as to bring it to the Republican standard. The States can, in this way, be forced, one by one, by a majority in Congress, to obey the will of the party controlling it. New York may be called to the bar of Congress, as well as Maryland, Connecticut, or Ohio, or any other State. By taking one at a time, the States may be forced into obedience, if they seek a place under the protecting wing of the Federal Government. There is no constitutional provision or law defining what constitutes a republican form of government. The lexicographers of the period of framing the national Constitution furnish no definition indicating any thing beyond a general outline. Its common meaning of that day is found in Rees's "Encyclopædia" in these words: "a commonwealth, a popular state, or government; a nation where the body, or only a part of the people, have the government in their own hands. When the body of the people is possessed of the supreme power, this is called a democracy." Ancient republics were contradistinguished from monarchies and aristocracies, but differed from each other more widely than do our State governments. Athens, Sparta, Rome, Carthage, Genoa, Venetia, the Dutch States-General, the Swiss Cantons, and United Provinces of the Netherlands, were all called republics. But their internal ar

rangements, providing the hands in which the power of government was lodged, differed very essentially. But the framers of our Constitution had immediately before them thirteen State gov ernments, each claiming to be republican in form, and which had been in practical operation several years-during the Revolutionary War and the Confederation. These were the identical States which were to compose the Federal Government, and to be protected under the guaranty clause by it. These State governments, though republican in form, differed widely in relation to the right of suffrage, appointments to, and the duration of offices, and numerous other things. The pledge guaranteeing to the States governments republican in form, referred to these State governments as they then existed, without reference to any particular standard. Rhode Island was admitted with no other constitution than the charter granted by Charles II., in 1663. Some of the States permitted only freeholders to vote, and nearly every one excluded negroes. Whatever might be the details, the authors of the Constitution considered them republican in form at the time their assent was given to the Constitution. Mr. Madison, in the Federalist, says: "But the authority extends no farther than to a guaranty of a republican form of government, which supposes a preëxisting government of the form which is to be guaranteed. As long, therefore, as the existing republican forms are continued by the States, they are guaranteed by the Federal Constitution. Whenever the States may choose to substitute other republican forms, they have a right to do so, and to claim the Federal guaranty for the latter. The only restriction imposed on them is, that they shall not exchange republican for anti-republican constitutions, a restriction which, it is presumed, will hardly be considered a grievance." Congress, when admitting new States, deemed their constitutions republican in form, or their applications for admission would have been rejected.

But now Congress ignores all these considerations, and erects a standard of its own by which to adjudge the rights of both the original and new States. States are now required to have constr tutions which will secure, through negro votes, the ascendency of the Republican party, in order to come within the modern defini

tion. This is the legitimate effect of what is claimed. Senator Sumner, who controls the Republicans in the Senate, in a letter to the Independent, made this avowal in behalf of the Republican party:

"SENATE CHAMBER, 20th April, 1867. "MY DEAR SIR: You wish to have the North 'reconstructed, so at least that it shall cease to deny the elective franchise on account of color. But you postpone the day by insisting on the preliminary of a constitutional amendment. I know your vows to the good cause; but ask you to make haste. We cannot wait.... This question must be settled without delay. In other words, it must be settled before the presidential election, which is at hand. Our colored fellow-citizens at the South are already voters. They will vote at the presidential election. But why should they vote at the South and not at the North? The rule of justice is the same for both. Their votes are needed at the North as well as at the South. There are Northern States where their votes can make the good cause safe beyond question.

"There are other States where their votes will be like the last preponderant weight in the nicely-balanced scales. Let our colored fellow-citizens vote in Maryland, and that State, now so severely tried, will be fixed for human rights forever. Let them vote in Pennsylvania, and you will give more than 20,000 votes to the Republican cause. Let them vote in New York, and the scales, which hang so doubtfully, will incline to the Republican cause. It will be the same in Connecticut. . . . Enfranchisement, which is the corollary and complement of emancipation, must be a national act also proceeding from the national Government, and applicable to all the States."

...

There is no mistaking Mr. Sumner's object. It is to force all the States, through congressional action, to admit the negroes to the full right of suffrage, so as to carry the presidential election. Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New York, are named as States which must be made to concede what he demands for the negroes. Why did he not speak of Ohio? The action of Congress will be limited only by its power over its members. If they fear the effect of excluding the representatives from the States named, and