pH83 E 666 .F69 CopV FOR WHOM ¥ILL YOU VOTE ? FOR WHOM OUGHT YOU TO VOTE ? THE WHOLE AFFAIR IN A FEW WORDS. Dld. The vote which you will soon be called upon to give is for an elec- tion, not for a nomination. There is no longer time to criticise or to substitute some one you like better, for some one you like moderately well. All we can do now is to select between candidates that are offered. To tliem the election is absolutely restricted. You might, indeed, not vote at all ; but this is undutiful, especially at a time when things of so great importance depend upon an election like the present one. Whoever has a right to vote, has the duty to vote ; nor is the only object in voting to obtain a majority. The larger the majority given for a good and great cause is, the better it is for the cause, because the stronger is the moral effect. Elec- tion votes in our country are like swelling rivers — once fairly swelling,, they swell more and more. Let no true nationalist stay at home because he thinks the cause will be victorious without him. Tlie election before us is to express a rebuke-^let the rebuke be like a deafeninj; thunder. Although many State officers and representatives must be voted upon in the present election all over the Union, yet the election is a national one, and the question now trying before the people is ex- clusively reduced to this : Congress or President, Peace and Countiy, or Democratic Party, with all its presumptuous party mythology and querulous discomfort. Can any one hesitate how he should vote in this crisis? Some say, and among them is Andrew Johnson himself, that the present Con- gress, so styled, is no full, and therefore no legal Congress. A greater absurdity has never been uttered. How does the matter stand? We lived in peace ; a citizen was lawfully elected President; whereupon a number of States broke loo=e and swore they would never belong to the vile Union again ; they wage a long war against -2 euLu ? rL9 u=<, in wliich, for humaRity's sake, wz grant them the rights of war ; they are conquered, beaten, and driven from the field, and instantly Alexander H. Stephens, with thousands and thousands in the South, and the Democrats in the North, say: So soon as rebels lay down their arms, they have an absolute right to com3 back to Congress, and that Congress which does not re-admit them imtanthj is incomplete and illegal. PI as absurdity ever been carried farther? Four years have they waged war against us, bitterly and most malignantly ; for more than a year they have continued to carry on the war after peace has been declared, by murder and massacre in many portions of the country; and yet, s) soon as the fine gentlemen choose to say, " We want to come back," the victorious North is expected to receive them, at the instant, with open arms ! No man has ever said that they should never come back ; but, in the name of common sense, has the victorious party no right to say a word in the affair? Has the por- tion that did not rebel no right to say, " Wait a moment, we must first arrange matters a little" ? As to all that theorizing about States going out of the Union, and States not being able to go out of the Union, it is mere phrase. We must go by facts, and a fact it is, that even where members of a family have had a quarrel, and several members have left the house, some little time would be required, to re-arrange matters, before the mem- bers could come back ; and that especially those who had left the house and smashed the windows would not be allowed to dictate the time when they should be re-admitted, or to claim instantaneous re- admission. How much more must tliis be the case when people have fought with one another for four long years, during which more than two millions of people wrestled with one another. But it is objected that President Johason told the rebellious States, that if they would comply with certain conditions they would be re- admitted, and that the States have complied with these conditions. Answer : President Johnson did not say so ; on the contrary, far as he went on his own accord, he said that the whole remained subject to Congress ; but whatever he did or said, he had no right whatever to lay down such elementary conditions of reconstruction. The Presi- dent of tiie United States is not our legislator ; though his powers may be great in war, they do not and cannot affect Congress or re- constructive legislation. President Johnson declared that he would be the Moses of the negroes. He has forgotten this, and now pre- sumes to be our Moses, but Israel rejects this Moses II. Congress has never lost its essential attributes of legislation. Are wevcitizens of a republic, or subjects to some would-be Cajsar? Even Dr. Paley, that mild English utterer of political philosopy, in the last century — even Paley acknowledged, what many publicists had said before him, that in a free country. Parliament, or the Legis- lature, is sovereign — meaning supreme. Holland, with a hereditary stadtholder even, acknowledged this, and will you, Americans, allow a reckless Executive to declare yoiu" own law-makers, elected by you for that very purpose, and representing you, so that you may be able to say in truth : " Let Ein])cr()r never rule this land, Nor fitful Crowei, uor senseless Pride ; Our master is our self-made Law ; To him we bow, and none beside" — Avill you, citizens of the freest country, allow him to ridicule your own Congress, and represent it aS " hanging on the skirts of govern- ment" ? Shame upon you if you do. True, the President is also elected, and elected by the nation at large, but he is elected as the Executive, and not as the IMoses of America — not as the lawgiver, not as the Tribune of the people. Blair and others like to represent him as such. We do not want a Tribune ; we have not that sort of oiRce in our system, which furnishes us with a complete legislative and representative system. The idea of a Tri- bune in America, is a treasonable idea. Fellow-citizens, if anything characterizes our own government, it is this, that it is a representative Republic. Away Avith your Tribunes, and Ctesars, and Elects of the People. We eschew all these obsolete and foreign things ; we want a lawful Legislature and a lawful Executive, each in its proper sphere. AVhy not, say even some of our friends, why not be generous, and allow the representatives of the rebel States to enter Congress ? The answer to this question is very simple, and very complete. First, it is no question of generosity, but one of right, statesmanship, and patriotism ; secondly, generosity as they understand it, would be favor to one portion and cruel disfavor to another ; and, thirdly, never in all history, ancient and modern, has a victorious people, after so protracted a civil war, and under such fierce and thrilling provoca- tions, been so generous as the North has shown itself to the South after our civil war. The rebels did not expect it. Europe testifies to our generosity. The proposed Amendment to the Constitution proves it. If this Amendment is not generous, it will be difficult to say what is. Imagine how our history will read: "There was a war of four long years, witliout any just cause, with innumerable battles, fiendish treatment of the prisoners, assassination of, a good and kind President, introducing murder into our history for the first time ; there was a gigantic volunteer army, a corresponding public debt and heavy taxation ; cripples everywhere; widows in mourning; the most rancorous and challenging vilification continuing in the con- quered portion; there was complete victory over the rebels; and after all this suffering, this crime of the enemy, and coarse vituperation, the whole vengeance which the North took was to pass this mild and righteous Amendment." Thus history will read. The Amendment is not perfect, but its imperfection lies in the fact that it does not constitutionally trample in the dust the doctrine of secession, as it justly annihilates the unrighteous Dred Scot decision. A simple declaration after the definition of Citizenship, that every citizen owes plenary allegiance to the United States, would have done this. But this omission does surely not weaken the generosity of the Amendment. The American citizen must vote in this election for Congress and the Country, or for President Andrew Johnson and his Policy, as he presumes to style it. 4 LllJKHKY Uh CUPIbKt^ib 013 785 609 8 What has the President done to entitle him to your approval? He has trangressed his power, as Executive, and denounced Con- gress, as though it were an unimportant portion of our government; while it is the most important of all the branches of our govern- ment. He has used and is using his influence to defeat the mild and gen- erous Amendment proposed by a large majority of Congress, thus daringly trespassing the authority of the Executive, who has nothing whatever to do, constitutionally, with amendments of the Consti- tution. He has called you Northern Traitors. He has represented and continues to represent Congress as a rump parliament, when, in fact, it contains all who did not leave it for rebellious reasons, on their own account. He has left the national party, who elected him Vice-Pi"esident, and thrown himself into the arms of those men who opposed his election, and have, throughout the war, favored the enemy. He is turning, everywhere, men, whom the good Lincoln had ap- pointed, out of office, and replaces them by acknowledged copper- heads. He has connived at, or omitted to take proper measures against, the massacre of Union men, and he is now, consistently, extolled by such butchers as Forrest. He has vetoed good laws, passed by Congress, and when they were re-pas.sed, constitutionally, in spite of his veto, he omits their vigorous execution, thus breaking his oath which he took when he assumed the Presidential power. He has reckles.sly abused his privilege of pardoning. He has threatened Congress in a sinister way, as though there lurked in him the desire to use violence against our National Legis- lature, and as if he really entertained some idea of playing over once more that piece of historic brutality — Bayonets against Represen- tatives. He has so acted that all our bitterest enemies in the South and North rally around him. He has disgraced us, in the eyes of mankind, by his ribald speeches and coarse conduct on his recent election tour. He has made use of his position, as Chief Magistrate of the whole nation, to travel through the country, in a degrading manner, for election purposes for himself and his newly gained party friends, and openly to defend a revolting crime — the New Orleans massacre He has contradicted and denied all his pledges and assurances on which he was elected Vice-President, when one of the darkest crimes removed the President, and made room for him. He has done all this after the victory of a piost glorious cause, and has done most of these things for the first time in our whole history. There is nothing like it on any previous page of our annals. Will you vote for such a man, who soils the pages of our history % Or will you rebuke such conduct and such treachery, speedily and on the first opportunity offered to you? The country asks you this question. Decide, and vote accordingly. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 013 785 609 8