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EADICAL RECONSTRUCTION 
 
 ON THE BASIS OF 
 
 ONE SOVEREIGN REPUBLIC, 
 
 "WITH 
 
 DEPENDENT STATES AND TERRITORIES, 
 
 U:^IFORMLY CO^^STITUTED THROUGHOUT THE PUBLIC DOMAIN, 
 
 AND "WITH THE 
 
 CORRUPTIONS OF PARTY POLITICS ABOLISHED, 
 
 BEING 
 
 A.ISr A_DDRESS 
 
 DELIVERED AT AN INTERIOR TOWN IN NEVADA, 
 AND PRINTED BY REQUEST AS 
 
 AN APPEAL TO ALL AMERICANS 
 
 FOK 
 
 NEW NATIONALITY WITH 
 
 . THE SOUTH AND RUSSIAN AMERICA, 
 
 LOOKING ALSO TO UNION WITH 
 
 ^ . MEXICO AND CAISrA33A. 
 
 SACRAMENTO: 
 
 KUSSEliL & "WINTERBDEN, PRINTERS — UNION BOOK AND JOB OFFICE. 
 
 1867. 
 

♦o 
 
 ^ 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 
 Contents Page iii 
 
 Pref&ct " iv 
 
 Prophecy and the Republic Page t 
 
 The JKingdom Coming " ri 
 
 GKSERAIi STATEMENT OF THE STBJECT. 
 
 The Enrdom of Canada.- - Page 1 
 
 The Eeconstniction Te need " 2 
 
 Principle* for immediate action " 2 
 
 ObBtacle Johnson's Attitude — ^DepoHtion iieces- 
 
 Bary *» 8 
 
 Present Precatrtionarj Meastffeg Bpecifled Page 4 
 
 Sjnrit <>f the B9uth " 4 
 
 Sue* a spirit natural " 6 
 
 When magnanimity win be wise " 5 
 
 FEEPAEATOEY ASD TEAKSITIOKAET MEASURRR. 
 
 1. — Proriglon for and against BecesrioB Page 5 i 4:. — Teirare of office daring fideEtj-to law Page 8 
 
 2. — New National Name " 7 5. — Provision for Safe National Expansion..... " 6 
 
 ?.— Modification of ttie Flag " S 6.— National Public Schools " 8 
 
 EECOSfiTKrcnOK PEOPEB. 
 
 1.— TKe New Nation to be a Goremment if the 
 Peo^ — The Prjiicii*eB of Bell-GoTerB- 
 loent Etat-ed Page 6 
 
 2— Satioc to be solely Sovereign " 6 
 
 8. — Bereraoce cf the Crvil and Ki^tary ftaie- 
 
 aoDS of Ibe PreeidencT *♦ 9 
 
 4. — Beq>0Q«l>i£ty of minor Oflftcers t-o Jiie Peo- 
 ple to be senved by a cheap and speedy 
 fysteni of ItnpeeohineBt iB fee Coarts " S 
 
 5. — Chief Officers remorable by large rote of 
 
 Conprew " 9 
 
 €.— Minor Officers should be made independent 
 
 of PoHtieJaos and Buperior Civfl Officers. . " 9 
 
 7. — Goreramect Ao>Dld be efficient against 
 
 local prtTudices "10 
 
 6. — ^Law-makers and Teteers should be snpw- 
 
 cedable before expiration <A term "10 
 
 Mvsarcbacal and Bepud>lican EeH-GoTerB- 
 
 t of Elections secnrable otherwise 
 Law-makers a&d Tetoers diauld alaoe be 
 electable -. 
 
 f JO 
 
 11 
 
 S.—Al>out Women Voting Page 12 
 
 10. — Toting for President and Senators should 
 
 be direct " 12 
 
 11. — The Seaate to represent Intelligence, and 
 
 the House the People of the land ** 12 
 
 12. — Congress instead of the State Legislatures 
 to prescribe the quahficatioos of Toters for 
 
 law-makers "13 
 
 IS.— Each State should hare three Senators — 
 ; all legi^atire terms of ^ce should be 
 
 riiortened " 14 
 
 14.— National Eepstry to be the Bans of Toting "14 
 
 How Toting Permits should issue "15 
 
 I 13,— Direct Taxes and Population should be di- 
 vorced "15 
 
 ' Ifi. — States should collect no taxes, but depend 
 
 I on CongresBional appropriation for support "15 
 
 , 17, — Plenty of wort and metallic money should 
 
 be secured to all the natitn....,- "16 
 
 '. 18. — General fiama^iy. " 1' 
 
PREFACE, 
 
 To radical thinkei s — and they only will read this pam- 
 phlet — it is of no consequence whatever as to who may 
 be its author. It is his wish that what is written alone 
 shall be considered, as though it were a voice speaking 
 from the dark. But one remark respecting lis tone 
 seems permissible, and that is required. Throughout 
 the pamphlet there is a positiveness of assertion which, 
 unexplained, might prove repugnant to the feelings of 
 thinking men and women, even if not ridiculous in 
 their view. When Congress, with all its patriotic and 
 highly educated ability, and when reconstruction is its 
 chief and special business, makes such slow headway, 
 for any one man (and he too remote from the diicus- 
 slons of Washington, as well as immersed in the cares 
 and toils of a private business demanding his first at- 
 tention) to declare, in all positiveness, this should be 
 done, and that ought not to be, and this third thing 
 must be, while that fourth no longer can be — seeming 
 thus to assume to himself both right and ability to set- 
 tle what the ablest men of the nation are so cautious 
 about — such a tone must prove nothing else than pit- 
 iable, if the seeming assumption be real. However 
 apparent, the writer desires in advance to disavow its 
 reality, and to direct the attention of the reader to the 
 fact that all the " should'?," and " must's" and " ought- 
 to-be's," even if not necessities for national adoption, 
 are necessities to the statement of an entire scheme. 
 But that the writer does roost solemnly believe the 
 adoption of some such radical and comprehensive pro- 
 gramme as that herein submitted to be of vast, even if 
 not of Vital importance, he is unable to deny ; and 
 doubtless something of that positiveness alluded to is 
 referable to a depth of conviction which the true men- 
 tal analyst will pronounce incompatible with egotistic 
 conceit. Moreover, the judgment of men of enlarged 
 and cultivated minds, already privately passed upon 
 the subject, convinces him that a careful consideration 
 
 of the scheme, as a whole (and not simply of its parts' 
 piecemeal — a practice puny critics are prone to), will 
 command for it such respect from independent and able 
 minds as the results of a study of the subject for a num- 
 ber of years should be entitled to. 
 
 Since the lecture was originally delivered, the least 
 likely of its predictions, viz : the CESSION OF THE 
 RUSSIAN POSSESSIONS— has become almost an ac- 
 complished fact. Should it fail of present attainment, 
 the future will certainly secure It. It is more perti- 
 nent, however, in this connexion to say that three of 
 the five measures herein denominated " present and 
 precautionary," In substance, have been enacted by 
 Congress, and there are promising indications that the 
 impeachment of Vice President Johnson is to follow. 
 This fact of itself is a meaiurable absolution from de- 
 served censure for positiveness, and is it not also, to 
 the broadly discerning, evidence that over the entire 
 continent there now broods a recreative spirit unseen 
 (mysterious as that which, in the Scriptural beginning, 
 moved upon the face of the world's chaotic deep, and 
 at whose behest there sprang magically into existence, 
 light, order, law and love), and that the result of 
 present bnuding on the face of our chaotic political 
 deep is everywhere just about those same creative 
 convictions in favor of present safety and a magnificent 
 future for our nation and the continent, which we each 
 are conscious of, as, ponderingly, we sit, snowbound, 
 by our firesides, ia homes perched upon the Sierra's 
 heights? And why should not light, order, liberty and 
 law appear upon the mountains simultaneously with 
 new life, hope and world-wide love in the great valleys 
 of the continent, when the fiat of Heaven has gone 
 forth, and in the very air we seem to feel, even if we 
 cannot hear, the ordaining words, "Let there be." 
 
 LOCK BOX NO. 1, Post Office, Gold Hill, Nevada. 
 
 I 
 
PROPHECY AND THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 If the Scriptures be indeed of superliumaii origin, ' 
 tlieir silence respecting America, botli geographically 
 and politically, while yet professing to forecast the tu- 
 ture of mankind, would be incredible, and the ques- 
 tion is a natural one : Do the Scriptures anywhere ad- 
 vert to America and our republic ? As a matter of purely 
 literary interest, the attention of the reader is directed 
 for a few moments, introductnrily, to one of the most 
 comprehensible and remarkable of the prophetic utter- 
 ances, that he may judge for himself or herself whether 
 America has been lost sight of in prophecy, and for 
 another reason, which will be obvious only to those 
 who attentively peruse this entire address. 
 
 About 2,470 years ago many Hebrew cnptives were 
 transported from Judea to the famous Capital of the 
 Babylonian Empire, and among them a youth, Daniel. 
 It would seem, from the account given in the second 
 chapter of the Scriptural book bearing his name, that 
 the monarch, Nebuchadnezzar, one night dreamed a 
 dream which troubled him exceedingly, and none the 
 less so because unable at the time to surmise an inter- 
 pretation, or afterwards even tJ recall the dream itself. 
 Attached to the court, however, were astrologers, ma- 
 gicians and pr.-fesslonal wise men, whom he sum- 
 moned, and to whom he spoke in substance as follows : 
 " I have dreamed a dream which is gone from me. 
 If magicians in truth, ye can both divine the dream, 
 and render its interpretation. If ye fail to, then as 
 Impostors I shall order you slain, as well as all of your 
 kind." 
 
 With no room for deception, they could but protest 
 and deny the ability of any man to meet the requisi- 
 tions of the King. True to his declaration, however, 
 he issued their decree of death. It was in the hands 
 of the Oiptainof the guard. As he emerged from the 
 palace for its execution, Daniel, who was a favorite, 
 met him and cried " Hold ! I will mike known to the 
 king his dream and also its Interpretation 1" Ushered 
 to the royal presence and his business announced, the 
 king bade him proceed, and in essentials the following 
 was Daniel's speech : 
 
 " King, the God of heaven and of the Hebrews hath 
 ghowu to fhy servant the vision he also showed the 
 Kin" Thou sawest a great image whose form was ter- 
 rible Its bead was of fine gold and its arms and 
 breasts were silver. Its body and thighs were brass 
 and its legs were iron, while its feet and toes were part 
 Iron and part clav. Thou sawest, till a stone, hewn 
 from a distant mountain by unseen hands, smote the 
 feet of iron and clay, and the image fell and crumbled, 
 while the stone itself became a great mountain and 
 filled the whole earth. 
 
 " And this is ihe interpretation of thy dream : 
 Thou, Kicg, art a King of Kings, and wheresoever the 
 children of men dwell, even the beasts of the field and 
 the fowls of the air are given into thy hand. Thou 
 art that head of gold." 
 
 Authentic history shows the Babylonian to have 
 been the first universal Kmpire. It was succeeded by 
 the Medo-Persian, that by the Macedonian, and the 
 Macedonian in its turn was swallowed up by the 
 Roman. According to Gibbon (who will not be accused 
 of desirins to " make out " a " fulfillment," for he took 
 every admissible occasion to expose and combat wliat 
 he honestly deemed Christian superstition), alter its 
 partition anl the dismemberment of the Western 
 provinces, the Roman Empire gave rise to kingdoms, 
 which both in number and character are aptly symbol- 
 ized by the feet and toes of clay and iron. 
 
 Yet that vision, or doubly dreamed dream, and recog- 
 nized by the King to have been the one he was unable 
 to recall, was seen, narrated and written when Rome 
 was but a village upon the Tiber, the world's Texas or 
 Idaho, and a refuge for debtors, thieves, bandits and 
 murderers, a century before the Republic and five hun- 
 dred and fllty years before the Empire. But for the ac- 
 count of Daniel : 
 
 "Thou art that head of gold — and after thee shall 
 arise another kingdom, and yet another third king 
 dom, which shall also bear rule over all the earth. 
 And after that shall arise a fourth kingdom, which 
 shall be as strong as iron, and which shall sway the 
 world. Forasmuch as iron breaketh in pieces and sub- 
 dueth all things, so shall this kingdom break in pieces, 
 bruise and subdue all others. And whereas, thou 
 sawest the divided feet and toes, part clay and part 
 iron, which will not mix, so shall that iron kingdom be 
 divided ; and of the new kings, a part shall be strong, 
 and a part be feeble and broken. 
 
 " And in the days of those Kings shall the God of 
 Heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be de- 
 stroyed, but it shall break in pieces and consume all 
 those kingdoms, but it shall stand forever. Foras- 
 much as thou sawest that the stone was cut out of the 
 mountain without hands, and that it brake in pieces 
 the clay, the iron, the brass, the silver, and the gold, 
 the God of all the earth hath made known to thee, 
 King, what shall come to paps hereafter, and the 
 dream Is certain and the interpretation thereof is 
 sure." 
 
 That doubly seen vision Is almost 2,500 years old. 
 Though uttered and recorded belore any but the first 
 universal Empire was in existence, and though it 
 prophesies of events even now in the future, from the 
 moment of its utterance, blindfold History, century by 
 century, has been slowly unwinding her scroll of 
 human life, only to disclose in current events that 
 very image of the doulile-visioned dream. Though all 
 else in prophecy be illusion, that im.ii;e of Nebuchadnez- 
 zar and of Daniel must be confessed incomprehensibly 
 prophetic, and even if not drawn in their minds by the 
 finger of God, it icust at least have been there pic- 
 tur°ed by some prescient intelligence superior to man. 
 Upon the map of the Eastern Continent we may still 
 see those feet and toes— some iron, some clay; but, 
 gaith the vision, all are to be broken, and bv a new 
 I Kingdom or Government, as different in its nature from 
 either of those as is n ftone of the mountain from the met- 
 a's of the mine. What is this coming kingdom? What 
 can be this Government so new in kind ? That it is not 
 the Christian Church, either Greek or Roman, either re- 
 formed or ancient, is patent from the fact that by the 
 vision it is to break in pieces and bruise the common 
 kingloms of men ; whereas, in every country except 
 our own the rhurch is an incorporiiled part of the Gov- 
 ernment, £.nrt lends to the State its countenance and 
 support. What, then, is this coming Kingdom or new 
 kind of Government to be ? " It shall be established," 
 saith the vision, " in the days of those Kings." I3 it, 
 then, even now in existence ? 
 
 But for the corruptions of our Government why could 
 we net answer "Yes?" and with those corruptionsre- 
 moved, in consequence of tliat terrible hewing which 
 as a nation we have undergone in our gigantic war, by 
 the unseen hand of Heaven, who shall forbid Ameri- 
 cans the belief that our own purified republic, radi- 
 cally reorganized, is not to be that prophetic stone, des- 
 tined yet to smite the blow under which the monarchies 
 of man, already too old in the blasphemy of oppress- 
 ively governing in the nime of God, must crumble and 
 be crushed to atomic dust, that the unseen winds of 
 Heaven mav bear them to eternal burial beneath the 
 sleepless billows of a sepultural sea? _ _ 
 
 If then, the reconstructed Republic of America is to 
 be that kingdom of heaven for which the Christian 
 world for centuries has sent up daily prayer, how per- 
 fect, should be that reconstruction, that it may be 
 1 worthy of the name. 
 
THE KINGDOM COjMING 
 
 The gnarliest heart Lath tender chords, 
 
 To waken at the name of ' Brother ' 
 And the time comes Avhen scorpioned words 
 
 We shall not speak to sting each other. 
 There's a divinity within 
 
 That makes men great whene'er they will it ; 
 God works with all who dare to win, 
 
 And the hour cometh to reveal it. 
 
 'Tis coming up the steep of Time, 
 
 And this old world is growing brighter ! 
 We may not see its dawn sublime, 
 
 Yet higli with hope our hearts throb lighter. 
 We may be sleeping in the ground 
 
 When it awakes the world in wonder, 
 Yet who but feels it gathering round. 
 
 And hears its voice of living thunder ? 
 
 'Tis coming now, the glorious time. 
 
 Foretold by seers, and sung in story, 
 For which, wlien thinking was a crime, 
 
 Souls leapt to heaven from scaffolds gory ! 
 They passed— yet see the work they wrought ! 
 
 See now the hopes of ages blossom ! 
 The fruits of their live lightning thought 
 
 Appear to deck the wide worfd's bosom ! 
 
 Gekald Masset. 
 
EADICAL RECONSTRUCTION 
 
 ON THE BASIS OP 
 
 OJSTE SUT>IIE]ME IlEI>UBI.TO, 
 
 DEPENDENT STATES AND TERRITORIES, 
 
 UNIFORMLY CONSTITUTED IN SUCH A WAY AS TO ABOLISH THE CORRUPTIONS 
 
 OF PARTY POLITICS. 
 
 To the thoughtful, not only has It long been a matter 
 ot deep regret, but it rapidly is becoming a subject o' 
 profound concern, that so few of our public men and 
 newspapers, whose positions and functions seem to call 
 for a wise leadership of the people, fail to treat the 
 subject of reconstruction with that breadth and radi, 
 cal comprehensiveness of riew which its magnitude, 
 consequenies, and the times demand. Scarcely less 
 alarming is it, that the spirit which breathes through 
 most of the discussions of this subject at the North 
 Is one which seelcB nothing nobler than national self- 
 defense, or claims nothing more exalted in point of 
 pride than the recognition of the right of any loyal 
 national citizen safely to go wherever he may please 
 throughout the national domain ; whereas, in addition 
 to a necessary spirit of self-defense, there should bear 
 brooding sway at such an historical hour a spirit of 
 such broad benevolence, of such enlarged wisdom, of 
 Buch exalted magnanimity, that it could be heightened 
 or improved scarcely by Heaven itself. Such a spirit, 
 while as a matter of course it would secure alike the 
 safety of the nation and the security, with liberty, of 
 Its citizens, would seek to go far beyond, in order to 
 heal those sectional animosities which now endanger 
 the national life, that the way may be prepared for 
 begetting that common uniformity of intelligence, 
 Interest, political faith and social sentiment, no less 
 than that unity of purpose among all the people of the 
 land, and that common pride in the national might and 
 dignity, without wbicli, the perpetuity, in peace and 
 power, of any people, as a single nation, is an utter 
 Impossibility. 
 
 It is true that the present temper of the South, ex- 
 cept on the part of a small minority of whites, to- 
 gether with the entire mass of the colored population, 
 is such as under ordinary circumstances would forbid 
 a spirit of uncommon magnanimity and forbearance ; 
 but when we reflect that the chief author of such a 
 spirit is no other than a Vice President of our own 
 Belection (whose speedy deposition is a necessity, and 
 therefore becomes daily more certain, and repentance 
 deferred till the rope was on his neck should not save 
 him), and when we reflect that four million blacks of 
 
 the South and half a million more at the North are 
 radically loyal to the national cause, as well as hun- 
 dreds of thousands of whites at the South, who have 
 either been overawed by the Confederacy and its min- 
 ions, or who have heroically refused to bow the knee 
 to the Confederate image of Baal set up ; bearing these 
 facts in micd, in our victory, in our ascendency, in our 
 might, in our pride, we can afford to lift heaven high 
 above a petty spirit of crimination and contention, 
 and, besides quietly doing and forbidding all that na- 
 tional safety and individual security throughout the 
 nation demand — doing and foi bidding as transitionary 
 measures — we can superadd the healing hope of a 
 future reconstruction of both loyal and rebellious into 
 one new nation, in which cot only all the people of all 
 the late States of the Union shall have equal voice and 
 vote, but which will also recognize as needful, an edu- 
 cational qualification for representation in the Senato- 
 rial branch of the Legislature, thus begetting for the 
 new Government an excellence which will render it 
 needful for some organic provision for the voluntary 
 accession, from time to time, of other States — if not 
 Kingdoms — to help form the Great Republic of Amer- 
 ica ; and, when our political corruptions and needless 
 present costs of government are removed, together 
 with unlettered ignorance throughout the world, such 
 accessions may help form the universal republic of 
 mankind. 
 
 Never before was there so great a need as now, not 
 only for the harmonization of the American people, 
 but tor the reform, purification and strengthening of 
 their Governments, State and National, accompanied 
 with a reduction of Presidential power. Scarcely has 
 a de facto Confederacy of Southern States been extin- 
 guished (which Confederacy would have been a King- 
 dom, could Gwin, Mason, Yancey or Slidell have dis- 
 covered in all the ranks of expectant royalty a fool 
 fiat enough to accept the Southern throne) and with 
 the quenching of the Confederacy, as a shadow must 
 follow its substance, an Empire has gone out — scarcely 
 are these things accomplished facts when a new Con- 
 federacy of States is announced upon our Northern 
 borders, also projected as a monarchy ; as if Europe 
 
[2] 
 
 means to try another practical denial of our National 
 faitb, that throughout wide America, from ocean to 
 ocean, from the Isthmus to the Pole, no room can be 
 found, and no rock firm enough, whereon to plant a 
 single throne. As a fading cloud in the Southwest, 
 the Empire of Mexico and France seems vanishing, 
 though lingering, and while upon the Northern polite 
 leal horizon there looms the new cloud Ijingdom of 
 Canada, lo ! our own political sky is overcast and low- 
 ering, for, through the arrogance of a half educated, 
 and the other half drunken egotist, whom we are 
 obliged to own as our Vice President, we discover the 
 fact that, while our Government is unable without the 
 President to guard even the lives of its own loyal citi- 
 zens in territory lately subjugated by the National 
 arms, at the cost, too, of half a million of patriot lives 
 and three thousand millions of loyal treasure, our Presi- 
 dents are endowed with more than Kingly powers, 
 and lack Tmpei-iality only in the power of transmitting 
 their throne ; for, as Commander in Chief of the army, 
 the flat of the President could quench in blood the 
 Congress of the nation's loyalty, as a corresponding 
 oflicial mandate did quench in blood the Congress of 
 loyalty in Louisiana, at New Orleans. Verily, it would 
 seem as If the doctrine of Monroe, enuuciated and 
 respected when the nation was weak and feeble, were 
 now, in our day of might, become a mockery, fit for 
 the caricature of a London Punch or a misconscious 
 Nasby. Let us, as Americans, see to it that, while 
 our General Government is strengthened to a single 
 republican State with wisely distributed powers, our 
 Presidents shall be shorn of their present more 
 than regal rule. And let us see to it, also, that 
 our Governments, both State and National, be 
 BO improved, purified and cheapened that with the 
 failure of a British North American monarchy, there 
 may arise a longing of its subjects for unity with and 
 protection by the Great Republic of America. Pro- 
 vided the Kingdom of Canada shall be constituted as 
 truly a self-government as is the monarchy of Great 
 Britain, the comparative permanence of that new 
 Kingdom and our own new Nation will be more propor- 
 tioned to the excellence or quality of the two respect- 
 ive Governments, than dependent upon the form of 
 self-government. If we do not, in reconstruction, 
 constitute our new Government a better one than the 
 Kingdom of Canada, or at least as good — as efficient, 
 as cheap and as just — it is more likely that, wearied 
 and disgusted with the perversions and corruptions 
 now so common in our own land, our children will 
 covet annexation to Canada before future Canadians 
 will covet annexation to our unpurified and tax-bur- 
 dened Republic. But if only we constitute the Gov- 
 ernment of our new Nation equally efficient, equally 
 helpful and protective to the ignorant and poor, equally 
 just and equally cheap with theirs, nothing is more 
 certain than that, at no distant day, Canada will be 
 both republican and ours — for the very winds that 
 waft the oppressed from European and Asiatic lands, 
 however foully charged with an odor of monarchy that 
 seems to corrupt all oceanic cities, the moment they 
 kiss our shores and breathe inland upon the continent, 
 as if by magic, they seem to gather from our valleys 
 and our hills, from our mountains and our streams, 
 
 from our prairies and our lakes, that spirit of Christ- 
 broad liberty which can call no man master even, 
 much less Lord and King ; and this splril all human 
 kind in America breathe with the very air into their 
 natures and convictions, so that as truly as that Cana- 
 dians are American, if we shall now act well our parts, 
 just so truly will we, with them, and with an assimi- 
 lated Mexico, and with the ceded Russian Possessiocs, 
 constitute the indivisible Continental Republic of 
 America. 
 
 The reconstruction we have been dreaming of has 
 been unworthy the name. While reconstruction, in 
 the fullest meaning of the word has been our need, we 
 have been prating about tinkering amendments to our 
 Constitution, not in the light of present, temporary 
 and transitionary necessities, which only in truth tliey 
 are, but as if any three or four constitutional patches, 
 soldered never so tight and massive, could give us the 
 Constitution demanded alike by cur convictions, our 
 necessities, our aims and our times. We have allowed 
 our leaders to talk to us as if the whole problem of re- 
 construction was, " How can the South be readmitted 
 to representation in the national councils without en- 
 dangering the national life and compromising the na- 
 tional dignity ?" Whereas, the real problem is, •' How 
 can tbe national life be preserved and its vigor be best 
 increased, as well as its citizens throughout the na- 
 tional domain be protected, while we are preparing to 
 assume the garb of that new nationality which des- 
 tiny has decreed shall absorb not only the elements of 
 the two republican nations begotten (so far as senti- 
 ment goes) by the war and its antecedent causes, but 
 of the rest of the continent besides." 
 
 The truth is, whether our views are broad enough to 
 discern it or not, or whether we are too much engrossed 
 in personal occupations, anxieties and interests or not 
 to recognize it — the truth is, that since our birth as a 
 nation, in 17T6 or 1789, the outside world has so far 
 moved on and changed, and we ourselves have under- 
 gone such development and growth of ideas, senti- 
 ments and convictions, and we have become so thor- 
 oughly revolutiorized in pursuits, interests, education 
 and abilities, as well as advanced in wealth and intelli- 
 gence, that the Constitution which eighty years ago 
 only could be accepted of the nation is no longer more 
 than endurably adapted to our circumstances, convic- 
 tions and needs. Our constitutional or fundamental 
 necessity, therefore, is an entirelt new Constitution, 
 harmonious and consistent with itself, based radically 
 upon tbe principles of self-government in republican 
 form, and recognizing as its overshadowing feature the 
 sole supremacy or sovereignty of the nation, and the 
 subordination of the States, together with such a uni- 
 formity in their fundamental law that change of resi- 
 dence from one to another State will not be tantamount 
 to removing to a foreign land. 
 
 In view of what has already been said, it is plain the 
 measures of reconstruction divide themselves into 
 three classes : 
 
 First — Precautionary measures for the present. 
 
 Second— Preparatory measures for the reconstruction 
 of the future. 
 
 Third— Reconstruction proper. 
 
[3] 
 
 PRECAUTIONAKT MEASURES. 
 
 At all hazarils and at wbatever needful cost, the na- 
 tion must be preserved, and each and every citizen, be 
 he white or blaclc, must be protected, in whatever part 
 of the national domains he may choose to reside or 
 travel. It matters nothing as to whose lawlessness 
 Bsecurity of life, property or liberty is due. Such in- 
 security must be abolished, whether the lawless are In- 
 dian, Mormon, or Southern rebels; and, if in no other 
 way, by their utter and merciless extermination. A 
 spirit of obedience to duly enacted law, and a spirit of 
 submission to the duly constituted authorities, even If 
 under protest, must first be begotten, and must be 
 plainly evinced, not only by words and empty oaths, 
 but by consistent public acts besides, extenijin? 
 over a reasonably long probationary term, before it will 
 be safe, or consistent with the national dignity, to in 
 trust men, once criminally lawless, with a voice in the 
 framing of laws for the government of all, or before it 
 will be safi or consistent to confer upon them any 
 voice in the selection of the executors of such laws. 
 
 Vice President Johnson has indulged so freely in the 
 folly of claimiDg for the so-called Southern representa- 
 tives admission to Congress, that a serious doubt has 
 been created in the minds of many honest and earnest 
 men as to whether or no such admission ought not to 
 be accorded ; but reflection must certainly convince all 
 that such admission would be as constitutionally and 
 Internationally illegal as it would be dangerous. It is 
 as though, wbile a vessel were asail on the ocean, a 
 part of its officers, dissatisfied that their superiors had 
 resolved no longer to sail the vessel chiefly for their 
 interest and pleasure, during their own night watch 
 mutinously desert the ship, stealing her boats, and ca- 
 joling, terrifying, or impressing to their murderous serv- 
 ice such of the crew and minor officers ss were then on 
 duty and in their power. Almost dsarming the vessel, 
 and striving thoroughly so to do in order to prevent 
 recapture, they arm tbems'lves to burdensome reple- 
 tion. Scuttling the ship, and hopelessly, as they sup- 
 pose, they head for a distant shore, expecting to wit- 
 ness the whelming of their late superiors and rthe re- 
 maining loyal crew. Before too late, however, the dan- 
 ger to those on board is discovered, the scuttling 
 promptly plugged, and the pumps vigorously plied ; 
 while a shout of exultation rends the air when it is 
 discovered that the pumps are gaining on the water in 
 the hold. Safety on board restored, daylight discov- 
 ers the deserters in the distance, laden with the light 
 armor and richest of the vessel's stores ; to recover 
 which, no less than to recapture and punish the muti- 
 neers, the ship bears down upon them. Vigorously 
 they ply their oars in flight, but crowding all sail and 
 favored by a breeze from heaven, the vessel gains 
 steadily upon them. To lighten their load the muti- 
 neers cast overboard spare arms, ammunition, and 
 even food ; but the old ship, as if impelled by an an 
 gered, unseen, nigher power, speeds swittly in their 
 wake, gaining mile upon mile, till, ere noon, her grim, 
 charged guns frown upon and cover them completely. 
 Silence is broken by the noble old Captain's kindly 
 voice, that seems ill-toned for the surrender he de- 
 mands. But '• surrender " is his word and "destruc- 
 tion," if either flight or resistance is prolonged, is the 
 
 alternative. Moved by a compassion as native to his 
 soul as light to heaven, the Captain offers to feed and 
 protect all, and if they but pass up ammunition and 
 arms, he vroiTers even to receive them again on board 
 and deal as leniently by them as a Captain dare. But, 
 even while he speaks, the bullet of a mutineer stretches 
 him cold in death, at which a hellish shout, as of joy, 
 arises from the gang, while a Lieutenant succeeds to 
 the command of the ship. 
 
 But hark! Hear you not those further cries? they, 
 too, are from the boats! Can we make them out? 
 Hark ! " YonR Captain is dead and kow we'll sur- 
 render." That must mean submission, but it is a 
 curious way to own it ! But listen once more : " Dent 
 ns KO RIGHTS." Ah, that must be a petition, to which 
 distance and the water lend the air of semi-defiance I 
 But again : " Reinstate us AccoRDraa to our shipping 
 articles." Unmistakably that is both the tone and 
 language of parley and non-submission ! But again : 
 " nEADMiT us ON BOARD FULL ARMED." That Is Undoubt- 
 edly demand and insolence. 
 
 Foiled in their attemp' to sink the ship, and captured 
 in flight, on the verge of starvatim and at the mercy 
 of the loyal crew, can it be that these are the cries of 
 mutineers ! But hark ! the new Captain speaks ! What 
 says he? Loud in denunciation while in swift pursuit, 
 what says be now as Captain ? 
 
 Impossible ! Impossible ! lie accedes ! He owns 
 the 1' gal rightfulness of their demands ! He orders 
 the boats to draw near ! What means he? Will he 
 surrender the ship to their command? or is he their 
 Captain ! But listen ! He talks to them over the ves- 
 sel's sides I Be speaks as though he were of their 
 number, and all they were his most ardent friends, and 
 as such he promises them full protection. He assures 
 them that by their articles of agreement tbey could not 
 desert the ship, and thpir actual desertion was there- 
 fore null and void, and consequently they still are sail- 
 ors and officers, whose rights none shall call in ques- 
 tion so long as he remains Captain, though he sink the 
 ship to prevent it ! Foaming with insolent violence, 
 he orders them, full armed, on board, and immediately 
 to their former posts — for, their mutiny having been a 
 legal nullity, he declares could not be a crime, but 
 only a mistaken bit of wildness — an imprudence that 
 must be kindly overlooked — in fact, treated as though 
 it were a joke of the highest order, whose chief fruit 
 
 was TUE ELEVATION OP HIMSELF TO THE CAPTAINCY I 
 
 That is the attitude, as well as the reasoning, of Vice 
 President Johnson. And what should be our answer? 
 Words are inadequate. We must speak by deeds. Wb 
 
 SHOULD HASG HISI FOR COMPLICITY WITH TREASON ! 
 
 The only thing a sjne commander in such circum- 
 stances could do wouM be to keep oSf the mutineers 
 till disarmed and submissive ; and if right early a sub- 
 missive spirit failed to appear, why ought he not to sink 
 them ai-d do as he pleased with the survivors ? And 
 if for any reason he should decide not to, but should 
 conclude (and of course without consulting them !) 
 even for years to carry them in irons, what right- 
 thinking man or Government could complain of aught 
 but such imprudent lenience ? Who bat a fool could 
 declare such restraint unlawful? In such circum- 
 stances, whatever punitive course the Captain might 
 
[i] 
 
 take would be as lawful as it, would be right, 
 though the articles of agreement never said manacle 
 once, and tor the simple reason that by desertion and 
 mutiny they had forfeited their rights as sailors and 
 officers, and thereby became amenable first to criminal 
 law and to punishment. 
 
 Whatever measures, therefore, we, the remaining 
 loyal crew on our noble old American ship of State, for 
 the safety of the ship, for the preservation of our lives 
 and for the security of our property-whatever meas- 
 ures we ourselves exclusively adopt, even if it be to 
 the sinking of the boats that once we carried, our ac- 
 tion must be deemed both just and lawful. Should 
 England or France dispute it, in one minute the nation 
 would shout " Fight "-why, then, hesitate when only 
 the surviving criminals object to hai:.ging? How could 
 we expect them to enjoy such an exercise 1 
 
 Though it is less the intention of this address to dis- 
 cuss the precautionary and transitionary measures of 
 the present than to dwell on those to which, as a na- 
 tion, we need to come for our ultimate and permanent 
 reorganization, it is needful to designate, even if not 
 discuss them. They are : 
 
 1. Our Constitution should immediately be so amended 
 that not only the President or a Cabinet officer, but like- 
 wise any Judge of the Supreme Court should be deposa- 
 ble from office, either with or without assigned cause, by 
 the simple passage of a bill for that purpose by a three- 
 fourths, or a four-fifths vote of the National Legisla- 
 ture. Comment on this proposition is needless. Re- 
 cent developments demand it, and that is enough. 
 Ours must be a Government of the people, as well as a 
 Government of law. 
 
 2. Even before such a change can be efi'ected, Andrew 
 Johnson should, by ordinary cumbrous impeachment 
 and conviction, be deposed from the Executive chair, 
 and suspended from office during his trial. Should his 
 Impeachment trial develop the fact that he was guilty 
 of even a remote complicity in the assassination of 
 President Lincoln, as soon as a civil trial for either 
 treason or murder could be framed, he shoulJ be con- 
 victed and hung ; or, if that be as Impracticable under 
 our present law as is the trial and conviction of Jeffer- 
 son Davis, then, as the military Commander-in-Chief, 
 and, as such, ameuabla to military law, he should be 
 Court-martialed and shot. The treason of Jefferson 
 Davis pales before that of Andrew Johnson, as the light 
 of a match is invisible in the glare of the sun. With 
 Johnson executed, Davis might possibly be safely par- 
 doned, after one year of Andersonville prison fare and 
 shelter. 
 
 3. The presiding officer cf the Senate should be as 
 resolute a man as he should he good a lawyer. It is to 
 be regretted that General Butler is only a Representa- 
 tive, for as President of the Senate, even better than 
 Wade would he fill the vacancy occasioned by the re- 
 moval of the Vice President or by his ariest for mur- 
 der. Even if unexecuted, with Johnson and Davis 
 both in prison, there would be hope for loyalty ; and 
 with no Presidential restraint on General Grant, we 
 should hear no more of massacres in the Southern 
 cities, nor would the people of the South longer read 
 disloyal fulminations against the Government from 
 
 seditious newspaper* ; nor would the election laws, or- 
 dained either by a loyal Legislature or by a loyal Con- 
 gress, again be set aside and rendered null by either 
 rebel violence or votes. 
 
 4. Inasmuch as the Constitution requires Congress 
 to guaranty to every State a republican form of Gov- 
 ernment, Congress should first define what a republi- 
 can form of Government is, and then appoint a com- 
 petent Commission, to make inquest as to the charac- 
 ter of each State Government, whether it be that of 
 Maine or of Louisiana, whether Wisconsin or South 
 Carolina. Such States as in the judgment of Con- 
 gress do not possess Governments republican in char- 
 acter should be denied representation in the national 
 councils, until tbev shall secure such republican Gov- 
 ernments ; and without delay Congress should proceed 
 to frame republican Constitutions for their govern- 
 ment, which CoQStitutions should be uniform In all 
 important features, but especially In the prescription 
 of qualifications for voters and jurors, and in requir- 
 ing the sanction of Congress to all changes in such 
 Constitutions m order to perfecting their validity. 
 
 5. The President should be denied the right of su- 
 peiseding any national officer who had been confirmed 
 by the Senate until the new nominee is also confirmed 
 by the Senate; and no appointee who fills temporarily 
 a bona fde vacancy should ever receive any pay for 
 his services if not Senatorially confirmed. 
 
 The foregoing measures, imperfect as they are, if 
 viewed as permanent devices for reconstruction, are 
 no more than sufficient to tide us over the political 
 shoals in the midst of which we are now sailing, to the 
 deep waters of a restored common prosperity and 
 peace for the whole land ; the attainment of which will 
 require the lapse of at least as much time as traitors 
 spent in rebellion, and no more time than should be 
 required of them for their naturaliz ition as American 
 citizens, as if they were foreigners. Not to require 
 those who have been participants in treason to un- 
 dergo naturalization, with the rights of voting and sit- 
 ting on juries, as well as of administering the laws, 
 must so infallibly bring the Government into contempt 
 and decriminalize treason, that it were insanity ever to 
 dream of such indecency of haste or of such imbecil- 
 ity of lenience. It Is greatly to be deplored that our 
 leaders in Congress should even momentarily have 
 weakened upon so vital a point. It should be Insisted 
 upon, though it required an army of occupation at the 
 South a million strong, and at a cost of a thousand 
 millions cf dollars a year ; for without it, for all prac- 
 tical efficiency, the Government of the nation at the 
 South Is abolished, while the nominal surrender of the 
 Confederate armies transmutes to the actual subjuga- 
 tion of the nation by the mobs which left those armies 
 paroled. 
 
 The spirit of the foregoing remarks Is one which the 
 necessities of the times and situation demand. Though 
 based in justice and the principles of human nature, 
 they make no claim to a spirit of magnanimity which 
 could win cordiality of co-operation from rebels. They 
 do cot aim to. They are not adapted to that result. 
 It would be folly to attempt such a thing. Johnson 
 has perhaps tried it, and succeeded only in making 
 himself as much the laughing stock of history as poor 
 
[5] 
 
 Buchanan has become compassionately contemned, 
 while Lincoln, by as much a wiser as it was a kindlier 
 course, unconsciously enthroned himself among the 
 historical gods. So long as a spirit of rebellion is 
 vital, so long nothing can coDciliate or win it. The 
 very essence of rebellion is unUmited usurpation of 
 right and law by might. No concessions can appease 
 it. Its cravings are for absolute and unchecked domi 
 nation. Concessions but craze and madden it, as the 
 Bcent and taste of blood frenzy a pent and famishing 
 tiger. It thirsts for more. It craves destruction. 
 Even if begotten by disease, the essence of rebellion Is 
 crime, which must be curbed while the disease is ad- 
 ministered to. Its first treatment is confinement, and 
 Its cure involves not only sturdy nursing but heavy 
 purging and palpable punishment. It is an insanity, 
 and its complete cure calls for the awakening of a men- 
 tal hope, bright and broad enough to banish the bitter- 
 ness and gall of the mental part. The hope of future 
 reinstatement among the good and sane, contingent 
 alike upon penitence and recovery, must be the men- 
 tal beacon for our madmen of the South. Magnanim- 
 ity is lost upon unreasonable revolt. It can compre- 
 hend nothing but Indomitable will and power com- 
 bined. Violent Itself, it fears violence, and can only 
 be cowed or bludgeoned into submission. It cannot be 
 lulled to rest, but must sleep, if ever, from exhaustion 
 when despair sets fully in ; and from sleep it may 
 awake less wild, or possibly even sane, and under a 
 treatment of non-discussional as well as unviudictive 
 kindness it may grow to hate the pan and hope in 
 the future for worthier and greater good than ever un- 
 worthily it dreamed of through rebellion in the past. 
 
 The spirit of rebellion at the South has not yet fallen 
 Into the stupor of exhaustion that precedes sleep and 
 curative rest. It yet raves, and a silly nurse has been 
 trying to convince both patient and doctors that tbete 
 ravings are actually reason, only indignantly vehe 
 ment. "^ — "^ ■• 
 
 we must sit down by the bedside of our patients as 
 inends, and avowing not only our native equality but 
 a brotherliness of feeling stronger and more lasting 
 ban the transient vindictive indignation begotten by 
 the war, we must evince not only a readiness but a res- 
 olution to forget the past, and having annihilated their 
 National Government, disclose the purpose of abandon- 
 ing our own, that with them we may be one people 
 and as cordially, as we must be legally, united and in- 
 dissoluble under a Constitution based on necessities 
 expenences, convictions, principles, aims and aspira' 
 tions common to us all. While we cannot yield 
 the purposes for which we warred, but, on the con- 
 trary, we must embody them in our new organic law 
 all non-essential matters en which our common pride 
 can fasten, we can even ofTer much more than concede 
 In the new nation every believer in sell-government 
 must have an equal voice and vote, but at the same 
 time we can admit educated intelligence to become a 
 distinct curbing factor in the Government, not only 
 by requiring a certain degree of education in order to 
 eligibility to olBee. but likewise necessary in order 
 to vote for members of one branch of the Legis- 
 latures, State and National; and, warned by 
 an experience of manifold evils in the past 
 and by a burden of necessary tcxation elsewhere 
 unknown and nowhere else endurable, we must leave 
 no room for the continued existence or new growth of 
 any such debasing and corrupt system ol politics as 
 has fastened like a huge and monster vampire, with ten 
 thousand leeching heads, upon the very vitals of aU 
 our Governments, municipal, State and national The 
 result of such a system now is, the perverson of our 
 Governments from the attainment of their sole legiti- 
 mate and justi ying ends-security to all the law-abid- 
 ing people In the free pursuit of haj,piness-to the 
 compassing, primarily, of personal advantages or grati- 
 fications to some political aspirant or professional 
 
 Tr::^:'izriT;-i^-^^^^^^ 
 
 belief. A new nurse 13 needful, even for the patient's 
 good, for he must be, not flattered, but both watched 
 and curbed. Doors must be secured and windows 
 barred, and however kindly in our hearts we may feel 
 our first duty is control, government and safety The 
 foregoing Indicated measures are but the means. They 
 are but the manacles, the extra bars and bolts and 
 our present duty I3 to keep watch and guard- and if 
 we boldly and firmly fulfill our present duty, a nobler 
 a more pleasant, a grander one, will be soon before us 
 -that of rearing, aided by our present prisoner pa- 
 tients and directed by the unseen powers of Heaven 
 that political edifice for man for which the oppressed 
 have ever sighed, of which Scripture prophesies and ot 
 which poets dream and orators catch inspiration 
 glimpses m their heavenward flights. To the consid- 
 eration of a series of measures designed to prepare the 
 people of the nation, in sentiment, lor a cordial subse 
 quent adoption of what would amount, in practice to a 
 new Constitution, your attention is now directed.' 
 
 PREPARATOBV MEASURES. 
 
 It is at this point Where fii st it becomes either fitting 
 or safe that a spirit of benign and exalted magnanim- 
 ity should divest itself of armor and, laying aside the 
 mien of the captor as we doff the garb of the physician 
 
 or however unfit for any public trust-resulting also 
 in such serious pe. version 0/ justice to criminals and 
 consequent insecurity of life and property, as some- 
 times necessitates, and therefore morally justifies resort 
 to lynching- imposing also a needless taxation on both 
 property and income, wbile creating a fearfully large 
 class of non-producing ofl3ce seekers, who, after desert 
 ing creative labor, add nothing to the taxable wealth 
 of the community, thus burdening property and in- 
 come doubly-honoring also with official posts and 
 large compensations (for nominally filling ofiices, the 
 duties of which are performed by others), men of note, 
 riously Intemperate, depraved and brutal habits-thug 
 weakening that confidence and respect of the people 
 for the Government and its executors which renders 
 obedience difficult, and without which affection and 
 devotion even to our very form of government cannot 
 survive a century, much less through the ages of his- 
 tory to come. But for the measures of preparation and 
 healing in particular: 
 
 First— When a spirit of thorough submission is re- 
 begotten on the part of the Southern whites to the 
 principles of self government as embodied in our 
 national institutions, such a submission as Andrew 
 Johnson transmuted into one of arrogance and dicta- 
 
[6] 
 
 tion, for which he is (far more than his present masters 
 are) responsible, rendering the second subjugation of 
 the South to the nation as essential as the first, in 
 order to the national safety and security of the people — 
 when those who at the South have usurped and solely 
 exercised the inherent political rights of all the people 
 there — when they, restored to reason, shall grow to feel 
 it a privilege, far more than right, to gain, instead of 
 former domination and instead of present national 
 Bway, present immunity from death and confiscation of 
 all property for treason, coupled with the hope of a 
 future equal voice in the Government with their former 
 slaves (by their own madness converted into their 
 fellow citizens), and no more than an equal voice also 
 with each of the other inhabitants of the land, then 
 will the time have come for us to be so tender and 
 regardful of their Americanhood as, in granting con- 
 cessions, to forbear all allusion even to the fact that 
 once they were subjugated legal criminals, and, as 
 such, properly denied the privileges properly common 
 among law-abiding men. Not only will they then have 
 been unfitly legally pardoned by official parchment 
 and a Presidential clerk, but it will be as fitting as it 
 will be noble and dramatically grand , that the widowed 
 and orphaned alike of the South and North shall for- 
 give them from their very hearts. All other facts 
 should then be forgotten and swallowed up in the one 
 great new fact that they are each willing, as equals, to 
 help all the rest rear a fabric of government for man, 
 as well as for their and our posterity and common 
 weal, better than that they warred against, in which 
 none shall be born to rule, but under which any may be 
 chosen of all, and chosen by the largest vote, to serve 
 the whole people, and in such capacities, too, as the 
 people ordain in their organizing law. Then, mag- 
 nanimity will be as honorable as safe, and we can 
 freely consider questions as questions, which under 
 the menacing and murderous threats and assaults of 
 the former South we were obliged to dismiss as ques- 
 tions, in order to punish the belligerents who assumed 
 to settle them, not only for themselves but very gra- 
 ciously for ourselves also and without our leave, while 
 we ourselves, in just retaliation, for the time being set- 
 tled them for all, in opposition to their wishes. 
 
 The question, as a question, has never been consid- 
 ered by the nation, whether any portion of the na- 
 tional domain can be segregated from the rest, to be- 
 come an independent and sovereign State; and if such 
 a thing, under any circumstances, is admissible, how 
 such territory can be so segregated. The only ques- 
 tion which, as a nation, we have considered and de- 
 cided is, that no State or Territory of the American 
 Union is so far sovereign or independent, either of the 
 National Government or of its fellow States, that it 
 may, either with or without insult or defiance, and not 
 only without leave but against leave, of itself assume 
 to sever a political connection which was jointly 
 formed, forgetful alike of the law and the adage, "It 
 takes two to undo as well as make a bargain ;" and as 
 though political neighbors had neither vested rights or 
 interests in a continuance of political relations. 
 
 There is no likelihood that the people of America 
 ever will consent to any partition of the national 
 domain. On the contrary, there is every probability 
 
 that, and reason why, they should not. Notwithstand- 
 ing, if ever we should so choose, we — the entire people 
 of the Republic — have as full and perfect a right to 
 ordain it as we have to forbid it. The power to choose 
 either is a necessary part of political sovereignty. The 
 very surest method of guarding against another viilent 
 attempt at secession would be, not as Johnson and hia 
 doting or rebel advisers recommend, by constitutional 
 prohibition of any such thing, thereby almost necessi - 
 tating secrecy of plot and possible wholesale assassina- 
 tion for its accomplishment, should the future ever 
 again bring forth so mad a wish ; but, on the contrary, 
 the surest method of prevention would be, in our new 
 National Constitution to provide not only for the 
 secession but exclusion of any section of the national 
 domain from the rest of the mtlon by some open and 
 simple, but tardy and difficult method ; so that the 
 very proposition, instead of being regarded as idle 
 buncombe and blustering braggadocio, would wake the 
 nation not only to its legal veto, and to preparation 
 for resistance by force of arms if needful, but also to 
 Inquire into the reality of wrongs and burdens which 
 could generate so dire a wish. To effect either a seces- 
 sion or an exclusion, however, let it be needful for 
 legality that the entire people of the nation, as well as 
 of tt e section to be cut off (or refused its independence, 
 as the case might be) by two distinct direct votes upon 
 the subject, remote from each other by a year, shall 
 desire and sanction it by a two-thirds or four-fifths 
 majority of all the nationally registered voters. 
 
 Such a provision would forever prevent a second re- 
 sort to arms as a means of secession, and by admitting 
 both the constitutionality and the possibility of such a 
 thing, it would reduce the likelihood of segregation to 
 the lowest possible degree, and at the same time would 
 tend to temper with greater considerateness and re- 
 spect both national and local legislation. While such 
 a provision in our new Constitution would practically 
 result in the coldest, stiffest and waxiest death and en- 
 shroudment of secession which it is possible to com- 
 pass, its greatest value lies in the fact that it would be 
 a nominal concession to Southern American pride, 
 wbich would afford Southern leaders both excuse 
 and cause for cordiality toward the new nation ; for 
 they would claim, and it would be true, that the new 
 Uepublic admits and affirms the principle tor which 
 they periled life, sacrificed property and underwent all 
 the horrors of an invasive and a desolating war. 
 
 The task for the statesmanship of the present hour 
 is less how to govern and tax the South with safety 
 than how to recreate the former sentiment of national 
 unity, as one people, on the part of all the people of 
 the land. South and North, while maintaining the legal 
 fact, that however widely, in point of feeling, we have 
 been a sundered nation, in point of fundamental law 
 we have never been divided. We all know better than 
 to imagine that any other sentiment than one of hos- 
 tility can be whipped or beaten into any American, 
 South or North. The South thought otherwise, and 
 tried it on at Sumter, and afterwards at Bull Run ; but 
 what was the result ? At the one, the North arose «» 
 masse, and volunteered, unarrred, a universal invasion 
 of the South ! At the other, there came down that 
 horde of grim and sturdy stalwarts from the land of 
 
[T] 
 
 I 
 
 schools, and type3, and steam, and plows, each one of 
 whom felt tbat mankind was wronged in the nation's dis- 
 aster, and that he himself waa heaven-inspired to right 
 the wrong. With such a faith they were in truth a giant 
 horde, under whose legioned tread the continent 
 •hook and the political world trembled, and as a mat- 
 ter of course treason was trodden into dung. Did the 
 defeat of our national arms quench our national feel- 
 ing ? Did it not the rather give it new and vital birth ? 
 Did not each change of base, that brought to our burn- 
 ing cheeks the mantling blush of shame, work into our 
 very souls, enlarging and ennobling them, begetting a 
 patriotic zeal for the nation, and a devotion like that 
 of worship for the ideas for which we warred, leading 
 thousands to volunteer their very lives and forego en- 
 dearments more precious than life in attestation of 
 their feelings ? And, think you, after the joylul van- 
 ity and hope begotten in the Southern mind by early 
 and transient victory, think you that when gigantic 
 reverses, like thunderbolts from heaven, fell upon the 
 armies of the Confederate flag, think you that some 
 such frenzy of devotion to their ideas did not also 
 itrike straight to the Americanism of their souls, be- 
 getting in them a sense of nationality hostile to our 
 own? How could they be American and not so feel? 
 And when, by colossal invasion and State-broad bat- 
 tles, army after army was put to flight, their Govern- 
 ments dispersed if not annihilated, their cities cap- 
 tured, and their fields laid waste, and, peopling the 
 shallow-trencbed graves of Southern battle-fields, or 
 Northern Gettysburg — if not helpless, suffering or de- 
 lirious in unknown hospitals, or secreted and wounded 
 in desolate swamps, doomed to lie unburied and fester- 
 ing in the sun, if not sooner devoured as carrion — there 
 lay the very flower, pride and hope of ten thousand 
 Southern households, inhabited now alone with bowed- 
 down mothers and broken-hearted widows, or grief- 
 stricken sisters and agonizing sweethearts, wonder- 
 ingly mourning in desperate fidelity to the memory of 
 son and husband, brother and lover — think you tbat 
 In such American souls a bitterness of hate could help 
 arising toward that giant power which humbled and 
 bereft them, and left them, untutored to seU-sastaining 
 toil, to a choice between prostitution in the cities, 
 beggary in the midst of blight and ruin, or gauot 
 starvation, inferior only to that tbeir nation wickedly 
 inflicted upon their prisoners of the North ? And 
 however needful such crushing subjugation, or how- 
 ever terrible its inevitable consequences, the fact that 
 their revolt was without excuse, but in reality rooted 
 in social prejudice and aristocratic pride — that very 
 fact must but intensify and flercen their hatred of 
 what they term the North. Though Northern to the 
 very core, thank Heaven we need be no le»s American 
 now than before the war, and as willing to understand 
 the feelings of all Americans and confess them natural, 
 even when not justifiable, as to help devise efiectual 
 and permanent remedies and relief not inconsistent 
 with the wider demands of a broader humanity — and 
 if sympathy with the people of the South as fellow 
 Americans be so great a crime that hatred of their 
 late political views and purposes cannot make atone- 
 ment, it were better and more glorious to be con- 
 demned of rabble bigots than receive their applause 
 for shriveled hatred and insane vindictiveness. But, 
 
 fellow Americans, if, instead, such individual sympa- 
 thy and such collective respect for the Americanhood 
 of the South, bright and brave as it proved itself on 
 many a hundred battle-fields, if that be virtue in your 
 eyes, then with open hearts and ready minds receive 
 this appeal for new fellowship and union with them, 
 in a Government as new to us as to them, in which 
 way only can we be worthy of or gain their love. In 
 like circumstances, how would it have been with us, if 
 instead of the nation conquering the South, the South 
 had conquered us, and in order to do so had despoiled 
 and ruined us. Would it have been easy for us cheer- 
 fully to submit to victorious power ? And if they find 
 it difficult, shall not we at least be patient ? And if 
 spurred on to insolence by a disloyal press, which our 
 own Vice President refuses to silence, while he lead* 
 them on to greater arrogance, shall we visit on them, 
 his not guiltless victims, the weight of a wrath which 
 is due chiefly to him, while unimpeached he sways a 
 scepter upon .in American throne? 
 
 But to return to our supposition — if conquered by 
 the South, and no matter how thoroughly convinced 
 that our ideas could not prevail and that those of our 
 opponents must bear sway, would it not be infinitely 
 more possible for us to become part of a nominally 
 new Nation, which should embody with their victori- 
 ous ideas as many of our own as could be made con- 
 sistent, we ourselves consenting as equals, than it 
 would be to bow to the sway of the Southern Confed- 
 eracy ? And if we would feel so, even though improp- 
 erly, why should we shut our eyes to what must be the 
 feelings of the conquered whites of the South, and why 
 should we neglect that broad wisdom of magnanimity 
 which bids us (but, on the contrary, for narrow and 
 passionate reasons, however naturally begotten, refuse 
 to) hold up to all Americans, white and black, male 
 and female, the hope of a new Nation for all, in which 
 the passions of the past will be remembered but as 
 history. If we would be broadly wise, we must regard 
 reconstruction, not as a Northern question, but as 
 American. Although it was the South that erred and 
 we are of the North, it is unwise to perpetuate even 
 sectional memories, but the rather should we strive 
 that in the coming Continental liepublic we be nothing 
 less, or nothing else, as none certainly can be anything 
 more, than true Americans and worthy sons of Wash- 
 ington the Good, the Wise, the broadly Great. 
 
 So much for the spirit and general purpose we should 
 have. Let us, for a moment, glance at some of the 
 unitizing elements which, without the sacrifice of 
 aught that is essential or important, can be made heal- 
 ing and attractive. 
 
 In addition to that nominal concession to Southern 
 conviction already indicated, but which in truth 
 would be a floating sea barrier against the waves of 
 secession, we may mention : 
 
 Second — A new name for the new nation, and, 
 while nominally a concession, that this, too, may be a 
 gain, such a name should be selected as will not imply 
 plurality of thought or perpetuate by suggestion the 
 idea that our National Government is any longer a 
 Union, Confederation or Alliance of States as such, 
 when in truth and law it is altogether and exclusively 
 a Union of the People resident in the States and Terri- 
 
[8] 
 
 tories over which the nation has sway. Whether such 
 name shall be Freedomia, Washingtonia, Columbia or 
 America, or whether it be the Continental Republic or 
 simply the Great Republic of America, is wholly unim- 
 portant; and though of itself considered It is equally 
 unimportant that there should be any change of name, 
 as its influence upon the feelings of the Southern 
 whites woulii be vast, and would tend to awaken new 
 hope, new pride and a new affection, while it will in 
 no degree impair our own, nothing but unwise narrow- 
 ness could forbid the change. 
 
 Third — Though under no circumstances should our 
 glorious and beautiful banner of stars and stripes be 
 abolished, for under it we have in four wars fought to 
 victory, and under it we must fight through forty more 
 if needful and ever to triumph — still one great out- 
 lined star upon our field of blue could compass the 
 galaxy of a star for a State, which, without detracting 
 from our pride and love or marring the flag artistically, 
 would better symboliie the new nation and win for 
 itself in the South an attachment from even the once 
 rebellious such as it would be difficult for them to be- 
 stow upon a banner they have warred against in all 
 the earnestness of honest hatred. While preserving the 
 old flag, its modification, symbolical as it would be of 
 national encompassing unity for the Great Republic, 
 would be a message to all the people of the land and 
 a new announcement to the world that the missios op 
 America is not to impose, bct to uft all yokes 1 
 
 Fourth — Another measure of concessive healing, 
 which would also be a national gain, would be, making 
 the tenure of ail minor ministerial offices to be that of 
 good behavior. Except in the name of the new Govern- 
 ment, the most marked difference between the Consti- 
 tution of the Confederate States and that of the United 
 States was on this very point. At the time that de 
 facto Government was launched, the change was gen- 
 erally acknowledged to be an improvement upon our 
 own uncertain system of tenure, and that, too, despite 
 of our dislike and condemnation of the Confederacy 
 itself. Adopted by the new nation, with some qualifi- 
 cations which will be adverted lo elsewhere, it would 
 tend to cordiality of Southern feelings toward the Gov- 
 ernment, and in this large point of view should not be 
 neglected. 
 
 Filth — Provision must be made for the peaceable ex- 
 pansion of the nation, so as ultimately lo comprehend 
 the continent. In no other way can the doctrine of 
 Monroe be made vital without war, imperiling our 
 ocean commerce. It is not, however, in that point of 
 view that the subject is here adverted to, but as a pro- 
 vision which would tend to foster a common pride, as 
 well as a new one, on the part of all the people of the 
 land, thus tending to that unity of feeling which is the 
 Tery essence of true nationality. 
 
 Our own unwillingness to allow the segregation of a 
 portion of our national domain without the unbiased 
 aad free consent of the entire nation, warns us not to 
 annex any State or Territory which has seceded from 
 another nation, without that other ration's assent 
 (unless Buch State or Territory is burdened with op- 
 pressions similar to those which stung our forefathers 
 to war for independence, which oppressions are in no 
 peaceable constitutional way remediable), in which 
 
 case we should regard it as a violation of what ought to 
 be international law to interfere. Our necessities, 
 however, upon this continent, as well as insecurity to 
 life and property in Mexico and the oppressions of the 
 poor in other lands, all bid us make some prac.ical, 
 jast and general in vitory provisions for the accession to 
 our protection and sway of territories not now included 
 within our boundaries. 
 
 Sixth— A system of national education, tending to 
 that even difl'usion of moderate intelligence and Ameri- 
 can sentiment which everywhere results in security to 
 person and property, and thereby stimulates individual 
 enterprise and diversified interests, and leads to th^ 
 discovery and development of wealth, even in a wilder- 
 ness. 
 
 reconstruction proper. 
 
 Though the foregoing are all non-essential features 
 for our new Government, they are desirable as tending 
 to re-beget the sentiment of unity and nationality with- 
 out which a simple legal sway is too costly to maintain, 
 and without further preface we may pass to a consider- 
 ation of the essential characteristics of our new Na- 
 tional Government : 
 
 First — It must be no other than a Government of 
 the people, republican in form, and based radically in 
 the principles of self-government, which, in brief, are 
 these : 
 
 1. The will of the governed, freely and fully ex- 
 pressed, in accordance with the fundamental law, must 
 be the supreme rule of the land. 
 
 2. The laws must be executed by those who are le- 
 gally selected for that purpose, in accordance with the 
 fundamental law and enactments made pursuant 
 thereto. 
 
 8. All laws must be Bubmitted to as if constitutional, 
 until officially pronounced otherwise by the Judiciary, 
 aiting upon a case legally before it for adjudication. 
 
 Any Government, whether monarchial or republican, 
 if based on the foregoing principles, is a self-govern- 
 ment. 
 
 Second — Whatever may have been the true interpre- 
 tation of our present National Conbtitution as to the 
 sovereignty of each of our States individually, under 
 our new Constitution, with no room for doubt or ques- 
 tion as to the fact, the nation, exclusively and alone, 
 must possess the attributes of sovereignty, including 
 supreme sway over all the land and in all its parts ; 
 and in order most eBTectualiy to secure this end, as 
 well as to secure throughout the nation that desirable 
 unilormity of even State fundamental law on all points 
 of magnitude or importance, the powers of the State 
 Governments of the future, instead of being derived 
 directly and solely from the people resident in each 
 State, and having no more than a tacit or inferential 
 sanction by the nation, must be derived from the na- 
 tion itself in Congress assembled. Such powers should 
 be conferred by Congress ordaining and authorizing the 
 Department of State to issue, under the Great Seal of 
 the Nation, a uniform series of Charters or Constitu- 
 tions for State and Territorial Governments, such Con- 
 stitutions requiring no further sanction from the peo- 
 ple of each State or Territory, in order to their being 
 valid as State Constitutions, than for a majority of the 
 duly qualified voters to exercise their rights as such. 
 
[9] 
 
 by voting to fill the elective offices of such State Gov- 
 ernments ; which voting should be deemeil such a 
 "consent of the governed " as would confer the just 
 inherent powers of the people upon the Government Of 
 their State. Until a majority of legal voters in any 
 State exercise their voting rights, such State should be 
 excluded from representation in Congress and should 
 be governed by military law. 
 
 Congress should also have the sole power to amend 
 or modify such State Constitutions, upon petition of 
 the Legislatures of the States ; but all amendments 
 which should be made should be uniform and universal 
 in their application throughout the land. 
 
 Third — The Executive Department of the new Govern- 
 ment should be separated into two distinct branches, 
 the civil and the military, both of which under our 
 present Government are lodged in the President, who 
 should continue to be the civil Chief Executive, while 
 the Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy should 
 be the military Chief Executive, and like the President 
 subordinate to no higher officer. He (General Grant) 
 should be constituted our Military President, and re- 
 tained as such with Presidential pay. 
 
 Vacancies which may occur in the office of Comman- 
 der-in-Chief should be filled, for the time being, by 
 appointment of the President until the assenjbling of 
 Congress, when the House of Representatives should 
 nominate a permanent officer, who should be commis- 
 sioned by the President when confirmed as such officer 
 by the Senate. 
 
 As the President should be solely subject, and ac- 
 cording to law, to the people who elected him, or to 
 their representatives in Congress assembled, so, too, 
 the Commander-in-Chief should be solely subject, ac- 
 cording to law, to the representatives of the people in 
 Congress assembled. He should therefore be subject 
 to general instruction solely by Congress, by joint res- 
 olution, and he should therefore likewise report offi- 
 cially solely to that body, transmitting the report of 
 his three Cabinet officeria, the Secretary of the Army 
 and the Secretary of the Navy, and the Secretary of In- 
 dian Affairs, who should no longer be members of the 
 Presidential Cabinet. 
 
 The two Chief Executives, however, should be priv- 
 ileged to confer with each other relative to the public 
 interests, in order to derive such information as prima- 
 rily pertains to the department of the other, by either 
 deemed needful to the fulfillment of his own official 
 duties. 
 
 Such a divorce of the civil and military executorship 
 of the nation would infinitely increase the difficulty of 
 coercive usurpation, either by a President or Com- 
 mander-in-Chief, and provide the means for an effi- 
 cient Government at all times, and transmutable in- 
 stantly, at the will of Congress, either over the whole 
 nation or over any one State or Territory, from a civil 
 Government for peace to a military Government for 
 Insurrection or war, the acts of either of which should 
 bs legal. 
 
 Fourth — Our future civil officers, State and National 
 alike, and whether high or low, must be rendered effec- 
 tually responsible to the governed people and to their 
 laws, by our several Constitutions ordaining that all 
 minor commissioned executive and judicial officers 
 
 shall hold office, not as now during the pleasure of the 
 President, or during an expirable term, but until re- 
 moved by the operation of a cheap and speedy system 
 of impeachment, by the people themselves when prac- 
 ticable, and, when not practicable, then by their legis- 
 lative representatives. Until by constitutional en- 
 actment (and not merely by repealable law, which pol- 
 iticians will rescind if they have the power) we make 
 it more the interei<t of our minor executive officers to 
 act uprightly and attend personally to their official du- 
 ties (and thereby retain office with only proper 
 compensations attached) than it is to make all they 
 can, both uprightly and corruptly, out of any office 
 they are able to secuie (either by appointment or elec- 
 tion) during the brief term they may hold it, just so 
 long must we expect such gross official corruption on 
 the part of our public officers as now disgraces the 
 Government and disgusts the people. AVhile our 
 future officers should be placed in a position in which 
 self-respect would be possible, they must also be 
 brought to feel themselves but men, and our own hired 
 servants at that, and not our lords and masters, to 
 whom pertain large official revenues, while others are 
 paid to do their proper work. Such ideas and abuses 
 of government may be tolerable in Russia, France or 
 Britain, but they will no longer answer in America, for 
 the people have awakened from political lethargy, as 
 lions in their lair by hunters caught sleeping, and are 
 resolved to shake off all their shackles, those of the 
 politician as well as those of slavery, and purge their 
 Governments to the very core. 
 
 Fifth — The safeiv of our Governments should be 
 secured from dangerous encroachments, either of the 
 Chief Executive, of his Cabinet officers, or of the 
 Supreme Judiciary, by rendering all those officers 
 liable to ren-oval Irom office by the simple passage of 
 a bill for that purpose by the Legislature (as well in 
 the States as in the nation), either with or without 
 assigned cause, requiring, however, for the passage of 
 such a bill, a three-fourths or a four-fifths vote. 
 
 Sixth— The dangerous subordination of inferior civil 
 officers to their executive superiors, instead of that 
 safe, sole subordination to the law which only should 
 be tolerated in a Republic, should be entirely abol- 
 ished. This can best be effected by confining the 
 appointing power of the Chief Executive (whether 
 State or National) as well as the appointing power of 
 Cabinet officers, to the filling of vacancies wbich happen 
 by deatbs, resignations, superannuations and removals 
 by the Courts— in other words, by divorcing the power 
 of removal from the pow^r to appoint officers, con- 
 ferring the power of removal upon the people, through 
 local Grand Juries and Courts, while vesting the power 
 of appointment, where our present Constitution lodges 
 it, in the bands of the Chief Executive, not only of the 
 nation but likewise of the individual States, the con- 
 firmation by the Senate of all appointments being 
 necessary before any officer can receive pay for his 
 services. 
 
 In mUitary affairs and governm,snt, the subordinate 
 obedience of Inferior officers to their superiors is in- 
 dispensable ; but in civil affairs and government, it Is 
 as dangerous as it is needless and unwise. The obedi- 
 ence of laborers and non-commissioned clerks to com- 
 
[10] 
 
 missioned civil ofiBcers of the Government, is ttie only 
 need, and should be the limit of obedience for inferiors 
 in the civil service to their superiors, and the Legisla- 
 ture should be the judge of what ofEctrs and clerks 
 should receive commissions. Obedience and subordi- 
 nation of every commissioned civil officer should be 
 solely toward the law, and not to any superior officer ; 
 and toward the law, ordained by the whole people, 
 Buch obedience should be absolute, complete and per- 
 fect ; and such perfect obedience and fidelity to the 
 law should be legally deemed, what it is in fact, that 
 offlcial virtue which merits immunity from removal, 
 whether at the direct solicitation of any one or a dozen 
 politicians, whether in or out of office, and however 
 high or low, or by that seemingly more fair, though in- 
 finitely more corrupt and disheartening process, the 
 nomination of some other man to fill the post by a po- 
 litical Convention which the official incumbent is too 
 poor or too proud to buy, even if not too conscien- 
 tious. 
 
 Seventh— The efficiency of our new Governments 
 must be secured by rendering all officers, judicial 
 and executive, independent of purely local prejudices 
 and antipathies, by c inferring the right of appeal to a 
 Central Supreme Court of Impeachment upon any offi- 
 cer who may claim to be removed from office, not for 
 neglect or violation of the law he is appointed to exe- 
 cute, but in reality because of its firm and efficient en- 
 forcement; or if removed by a packed or prejudiced 
 Jury because he may have refused to pervert the office 
 he fills from its constitutional intent, to the advance- 
 ment of the personal interests or the personal gratifi- 
 cation of any political aspirant, even though he be a 
 President, Governor, National Senator or Representa- 
 tive, or a purse-proud owner of them all, or whether 
 he be only a petty, drunken, shoulder-stiiking, strum- 
 pet-monging, professional political nominator. 
 
 In like manner, if any commissioned civil officer 
 should fail to fulfill the duties which the law enjoins 
 upon him, whether owing to his own incapacity or per- 
 sonal antipathies, or because the law mi?ht be locally 
 unpopular, should the Grand Jury neglect to impeach 
 or indict him, the Government itself should have the 
 same power to indict such officer for trial in the local 
 Court that any one of the people should everywhere 
 possess, when cognizant of official neglect, extrava- 
 gance or perversion, through the Grand Jury ; and the 
 Government should also have the same right of appeal 
 from a perverse verdict of a local Court to the Central 
 Court of Impeachment which each officer should pos- 
 sess for his own vindication and defease. 
 
 An Appellate Court of Impeachment, therefore, be- 
 comes an important new feature in our new Govern- 
 ments, and that each State may be as nearly similar in 
 organization, efficiency and excellence as our new 
 National Government, each State should possess such 
 an Appellate Court of Impeachment. 
 
 Eighth — With the election of every officer (muni- 
 cipal. State or National) who has either a vote, voice 
 or veto upon the framing of the laws, a vice officer 
 should be elected, whose functions should be to fill 
 vacancies which occur by death, resignation or re- 
 moval of their principals from office, which removals 
 could advantageously be effected in the following man- 
 
 ner : The President, Commander-in-Chief, any member 
 of either of their Cabinets, or any Judge of the Su- 
 preme Court, should be removable, with or without 
 cause declared, by the passage in Congress of a bill 
 for that purpose, by so large a majority vote that a 
 mere trifling partisan ascendency in Congress could 
 not impart instability to the Government, by capri- 
 cious assault on the President or other obnoxious offi- 
 cer; but, on the other hand, the majority vote should 
 not be 90 large that the proper independence of the 
 President could ever with impunity develop into inso- 
 lence and defiance of the representatives of the people 
 in Congress assembled. When the Vice Presidency 
 becomes vacant, either by death or promotion, a spe- 
 cial election of the people should speedily be held to 
 fill the office ; but a vacancy in the other Congression- 
 ally deposable offices should be filled by appointment, 
 except the Commander-in-Chief. 
 
 The removal of a Senator or Rf presentalive could be 
 effected by a vote of the people, to be provided for in a 
 way which would confer upon the people's right of pe- 
 tition that importance and power which it merits, but 
 which it never has received. Upon petition of half the 
 qualified voters of any Congressional District or State, 
 the Chief Executive of such State should be required to 
 call a special election, and submit the question Shall A 
 B, Senator, be deposed ? Upon every ballot, whether 
 negative or affirmative, the name of a new vice officer 
 should be printed, and if amajority of the votes entitled 
 to be cast are in favor of deposition, the foimer vice 
 legis'ator should become the chief legislator, while 
 the paity receiving the greatest number of votes 
 should become the new vice officer. Neglect to vote 
 at such special elections would be indorsive of an in- 
 cumbent officer, and no penalty should attach to such 
 neglect. 
 
 The removal of a Governor could be effected simi- 
 larly upon petition to the Speaker of the House for a 
 special election, and in addition to removal by Con- 
 gress, both the President and Commander-in-Chief 
 fhould be liable to similar popular impeachment at an 
 election to be called by the national Speaker of the 
 House on petition of the Legislatures of three-fifths of 
 the States. 
 
 The need of some effectual provision, designed to be- 
 get a more thorough sense of accountability to the peo- 
 ple than our Presidents, Governors and legislators 
 have grown to manifesting, is necessary in order to 
 base the nation radically upon the principles of self- 
 government, and in order to constitute ourselves to 
 the very core a Government of (he People. 
 
 It will be asked, and properly, what power of elec- 
 tion will then be left to the people? And further, in 
 what respects would a Government in which the people 
 do not periodically elect all their own officers, differ 
 from a monarchy? 
 
 Let us consider these questions in the reverse order 
 of their statement : 
 
 1. The essence of monarchy is, that birth and 
 not selection, determines the occupancy of the chief 
 executive chair or throne. The monarch of even a 
 self governed monarchy, such as that of Great Britain, 
 is not constituted such upon account of special capac- 
 ity, integrity and fitness ; nor is his or her retention 
 
[11] 
 
 dependent upon efficiency as an Kxecutive, or upon 
 fidelity to the law, which as Chief Executive of the na- 
 tion it is his or her duty to enforce. In consequonce 
 of these two facts, a monarch is in no fair sense of the 
 term a representative of the people. A necessary con- 
 sequence of this fact is, that all the minor executive 
 officers who hold post by the commission of the mon- 
 arch are likewise in no sense representatives of the 
 people, and when removable at all are generally re- 
 movable only by other officers of the monarch's own 
 appointment. A monarch, therefore, is not only an ir- 
 responsible Chief Executive of law, but he is in addi- 
 tion the recognized head of a hereditary nobility, and 
 so recognized only because of birth. And he is Chief 
 Executive of the nation only because the hereditary 
 nobility, so called, claims and is permitted an equal 
 voice in the Government with that of all the governed 
 people put together. The essence of republicanism, on 
 the contrary, is the exclusive and sole government of 
 the land by the people, through their own representa- 
 tives, to whom the people, during continuance in office* 
 delegate their own inherent powers. Some of the offi- 
 cers of a republic are the direct representatives of the 
 people, because directly elected by the people. Such, 
 for instance, as our Congressmen, State legislators. 
 Governors and Presidents. Others are indirect rep- 
 resentatives of the people, because they are constituted 
 officers not by the direct voice of the people, but by 
 other officers who are such representatives of the peo- 
 ple. The point which this paper urges is, that all the offi- 
 cers of our own Republic and of its subordinate repub- 
 lican States shall be representatives of the people, for 
 the additional reason that the people, while having the 
 power to remove them from office, notwithstanding 
 permit them to remain officers, thereby conferring 
 alike on them and on the Government of which they 
 are a part the sanction of a full and free " consent of 
 tbe governed," thus constituting them their direct as 
 well as indirect representatives. 
 
 2. The intention of elections by the people Is pre- 
 sumed to be that of securing trustworthy officers who 
 will both economically and efficiently execute the laws 
 ordained by the whole people. It is presumed that if 
 an officer deserves re-election by the people when his 
 term has expired he will be re-elected, because the 
 people have It in their power to re-elect him. We all 
 know, however, that through tbe intervention of man- 
 Ipulable political Conventions, (which cannot be pre- 
 vented, and all attempt at the thorough purification of 
 which Is both hopeless and absurd), such a presumption 
 is untrue. No man can be re-elected to office in these 
 days simply because of fidelity to official duty. No 
 one can either be elected or re-elected who fails to se- 
 cure the nomination of a party Convention, and but 
 very few can secure that If they have the hardihood to 
 deny importunate political nominators their claims to 
 sub-officership In order to be faithful to the people and 
 to the law as officers. 
 
 While one Intent of direct elections by the people 
 Is to secure, even In executive posts, officers who shall 
 be the direct representatives of the people, as a matter 
 of fact, such officers are in reality the direct represent- 
 atives only of professional, wirepullin,; and ballot-box 
 stuffing politicians, and are at best represeDtatlves of 
 
 2 
 
 the people only in a very indirect, remote and exas- 
 perating sense, and able with impunity to defy alike 
 public decency, the common sense and the deepest and 
 most sacred convictions of the people, over whom they 
 rule with desperate extravagance and a haughty mien. 
 Not till we substitute for the periodical elections of our 
 minor executive and judicial officers, the principle of 
 removing each only for merited removal, will we attain 
 either economy, respectability, efficiency or true rep- 
 resentativism in our Government. If we can better 
 secure the object we have in view for holding elections 
 by which to secure minor executive and judicial offi- 
 cers by some otter method, common sense dictates 
 that we should adopt that other method. Removal by 
 the people in essential principle is the same thing as 
 election by the people, but would be better, because 
 men can be removed for cause, although they cannot 
 be elected for merit, but only for securing a political 
 Convention's nomination, whether honorably or shame- 
 fully. 
 
 8. Under such a system, the only class of officers 
 which the people would then be required to elect would 
 be, those officers who either frame or veto the laws ; 
 and this is indispensable to all self-government. More- 
 over, it is all that is indispensable. Provided only 
 that tbe will of the governed be enacted into law, and 
 that such law be enforced by those ordained of the 
 people in their Constitutions, it is a matter of no con- 
 sequence whatever either as to how such officers are 
 selected or as to how long they continue to exercise 
 official functions. Our present National Government, 
 with only Congressmen and the President directly ap^ 
 pointed by the people, is as truly republican as is the 
 Government of any Slate in which all the officers are 
 voted for annually, or frequently, and equally efficient, 
 if not more creditably officered, despite even of the 
 corruptions of Washington. If the people had no 
 other officers to elect than their legislators. State and 
 National, It would be comparatively cheap and easy to 
 secure good legislation. As there would be no oppor- 
 tunity for combinations of influence among aspirants 
 for diverse offices, each reciprocally to help the other 
 in a nominating Convention, the great source of cor- 
 ruption in such Conventions would be abolished, and 
 when State or National Conventions did assemble it 
 would be for the single purpose of securing a repre- 
 sentative nomination of a Governor and Vice Governor, 
 or a Senator and Vice Senator, or a President and 
 Vice President, together with the more important aim 
 of enunciating authoritatively the political faith of the 
 party. Under such circumstances aspirants could not 
 combine corruptly, but would, of necessity, be compet- 
 itors ; and having no offices to pledge to delegates for 
 services rendered, corruption would be banished (of 
 course, with exceptions), either by being unmasked, or 
 by its effects ; for it would need to cast off all disguise 
 and assume the naked form of criminal bribery. As 
 no personal advantages could accrue to delegates to 
 such Conventions, either the delegates would need to 
 have their lost time and expenses paid by the parties 
 they represent, or else none would consent to serve as 
 delegates but men of such deep and honorable political 
 convictions that they would be willing to sacrifice from 
 their own time and earnings the needful cost. The 
 
[12] 
 
 proffer of a bribe to such men would draw down upon 
 the head of the corruptionist such a thunderbolt of 
 public denunciation and exposure as would rend and 
 rive forever his chances of elevation to any post of 
 honor, trust, or profit in the new Republic, or in any 
 of its States, for it could and should be made a peni- 
 tentiary offense. 
 
 In no other way than some such as the foregoing can 
 we gain for the nation Governments which shall be re- 
 publican in form, based radically in the principles of 
 self-government, rendered effectively responsible to 
 the whole governed people, efficient against local prej- 
 udices and interests, independent of the dictation of 
 superior officers and politicians, and economical in 
 character ; and crowned witti such transcendent excel- 
 lence, the Great Republic of America will become the 
 hope of the oppressed throughout the world, an inspi- 
 ration to mankind, and the dread of the giant despoti 
 who yet dare tread our globe. 
 
 Ninth — This paper could not be radical and complete 
 if silent about women voting ; and it is plain, that by 
 such a curtailment of the number of officers to be voted 
 for, and with the abolition of that system of ruffianism 
 which now grows out of the perverted use of political 
 Conventions for multitudinous nominations, which 
 ruffianism too often manifests itself at the election 
 polls, the question of women voting under the new 
 Constitution would be a very different one, practically, 
 from voting under the present order of affairs. There 
 Is every reason why women should vote whenever man 
 should, and no oftener. She is subject to the laws, and 
 Js rational. She therefore has a right to both vote and 
 Toice In framing them. If she has property, she Is 
 taxed to support the Government, and why should she 
 be denied a voice and vote in determining how much 
 the expenses of the Government shall be. She, and 
 all dependent little ones, no less than tbe aged, must 
 suffer if a husband, son, brother, or lover is drafted 
 Into the army in time of war, and why shall she be de- 
 nied all voice and vote upon the question of whether 
 or no there shall be a war, and if so, how vigorously 
 and speedily it shall be prosecuted to a victorious ter- 
 mination. Her softening and elevating influence in 
 America is as needful in political matters as it is in so- 
 cial affairs ; for experience has shown that respect of 
 man in America for woman is more omnipotent to ban- 
 ish from his imagination even, brutality and vulgarity, 
 no less than selfish narrowness, than Christian, Jeiv- 
 ish and Deistic faith in a male God of love and justice 
 all combined. Woman is not only human, but as no- 
 bly as she is tenderly human ; and having been guilty, 
 as a sex, of no greater crime than bearing the nation a 
 horde of sons, who seem to feel that the possession of 
 a pair or two of old pants is a better voting qualification 
 than the possession of human nature and intelligence, 
 why, for such a crime, should she be debarred the rights 
 of human nature ? 
 
 Still, public opinion is not yet up to the mark which 
 demands the vote for woman, not even in Utah, where 
 it would seem to be so sadly needed. But as it is one of 
 the inevitable certainties of the immediate future, if 
 the new Congress of the Nation does not feel free to an 
 ticipate fate, at least let us be sure that body has 
 power to jield to the inexorable goddess (whether 
 
 Fate or Woman !) when the demand shall be made. 
 Let us not disfigure our coming Constitution by any- 
 where within it inserting either the word " white " or 
 " male," for " human " is the only term that covers 
 the "governed," from whom the just powers of every 
 Government can be alone derived. 
 
 Tenth — We should abolish a:l indirectness in voting 
 for President as well as for national Senators. The 
 original intention of the Presidential Electoral College 
 was chiefly to secure in the Presidential election that 
 same exaggerated vote to the whites of the South which 
 slavery gave them in Congress. Slavery having been 
 abolished, the Electoral College must go with it, as 
 well as that peculiar misenumeration of the people of 
 the South which also grew out of slavery. It is not, 
 however, solely owing to the abolition of slavery that 
 the Electoral College should be abolished as unneces- 
 sary and unjust, but because it secures a Pretident for 
 the nation who is not so directly and so accurately the 
 representiitive of the people as our Chief Executive and 
 our legislative vetoer ought to be. The man who re- 
 ceives the largest vote of all the people throUjjhout the 
 entire land, not excluding the national citizens resi- 
 dent in the Territories, should be declared the National 
 President, whereas under the present system, a man 
 who should receive a large majority of the people's 
 votes might be legally declared defeated. With tbe 
 system of direct voting, a result so utterly at war with 
 the principles of self government never could be 
 reached. In like manner the election of National Sen- 
 ators should be ordained to be by the direct vote of the 
 people, for the developments of recent times, and not 
 only in newly peopled Stales, but in the very centers 
 of Eastern population, show that the election of whole 
 Legislatures is very often made with chief reference to 
 their votes for the National Senator, to the great injury 
 of the legitimate legislation of the State. Inasmuch as 
 the election of Senators by the State Legislatures, 
 equally with the election of our President by an Electo- 
 ral College, is a remnant of the scheme of State Sover- 
 eignty (or, if you please, one of our Constitutional pro- 
 ductive germs of such a scheme), the feature should be 
 utterly obliterated. 
 
 The recognition of any State, as such, as possessed 
 of any voice or power in the new National Government 
 must be denied, that the people resident in each State 
 may be solely represented, which can be done without 
 denying to tbe people of each State equal representa- 
 tion in the Senate. Under the new Constitution, State 
 boundaries should become the boundaries of National 
 Senatorial Districts, in which the people should vote 
 directly for their Senators, as in Congressional Districts 
 they now do for Congressmen, but one National Sena- 
 tor being electable at one election by the people of an 
 entire State, just as one Congressman only is electable 
 at each Congressional election in each Congressional 
 District. 
 
 Eleventh — When we abolish the representation of 
 the individual States, as such, in our National Senate, 
 we need to constitute that body the house of repre- 
 sentation for something else than Stateship — ^just as 
 the "Lower House" is the bouse of representation 
 for all the people. Fortunately, we are able to har- 
 taonize two very important classes of politicftl views 
 
[13] 
 
 by this change, which otherwise -would be at war one I lent or inciting religious societies to do what the Gov- 
 with the other, and politicians aU-eady have arrayed ernment alone ought to do, and making a very good 
 them opposively as incompatible. They can be bar- | frround for claim by such religious societies upon the 
 monized— viz : While the Houfe of Representatives ■ State for the appropriation to them of moneys. If 
 
 should be what its name denotes, the house of repre 
 sentation for all ihe people (however poor and how- 
 ever ignorant, and as such, more in need than others 
 of such pratection by the Government as direct repre- 
 sentation alone can secure), the Senate should also be 
 what its name denotes, the house of representation 
 for the wisdom or intelligence of the people in each 
 State, and under such a system of representation we 
 might reasonably look for the legislation of the coun- 
 try to be a happy blending of justice and humanity 
 with wisdom and eolargedness of view. 
 
 To secure this desirable end the following measures 
 would be neeiiful : 
 
 1. The ordaining that the qualifications of voters for 
 Senators should be, in addition to their qualifications 
 as voters for Congressmen, the attainment of the age 
 of thirty years, if unmarried, or tweuty-fiye years, if 
 married. 
 
 2. In addition to the above, the attainment of a 
 certain degree of education, to be from time to time 
 prescribed by Congress, the method of determining 
 which should be by public written examination, either 
 upon graduation from the public schools or upon semi- 
 annual occasions appointed in each district (under the 
 supervision of public school teachers) by the Secretary 
 of Public Instruction and Public Libraries, who should 
 be a Cabinet officer. 
 
 8. The appointment of Senatorial elections at dif- 
 ferent times from elections for Congressmen. 
 
 4. The establishment, either of a national system 
 of public schools, maintained at tbe national ex- 
 pense, or a system of Slate public schools, rendered 
 elBcient and uniform throuf;i.out the nation by the 
 uniformity of the State Constitutions ordained by Con- 
 gress. Such a system should provide evening schools 
 for aoults as well as day schools for children, together 
 with an adequate number of orphan homes in each 
 Stale, with schools attached, to the custody of which 
 should be remanded, not only unprovided for orphans, 
 but all other children who are not kept punctually at 
 other schools, or at useful occupations when over a 
 certain age by their parents. The power of becoming 
 a voter for Senators, as well as for Representatives, 
 would thus be placed within the reach of all, and in 
 one generation the difference between voters for Sen- 
 ators and Representatives would be reduced, as a gen- 
 eral thing, to a difference of age, while at the same 
 time the unsectarian public school would be legslly 
 recognized to be what il is in fact, a political neceisity 
 to tbe permai ence ot the Republic, and as such, an in- 
 Btilulion to be most jealously guarded, encouraged and 
 fostered. 
 
 W hile we have no right to suppress sectarian schools 
 as dangerous in their tendency, and while it might be 
 deemed governmental interference with religion to 
 compel all such schools to conduct public instruction 
 in accordance with the general regulations of the Gov- 
 ernment for that purpose, it certainly is gross derelic- 
 tion of the Government not to provide such necessi- 
 ties as Orphan Homes, thereby burdening the benevo- 
 
 there is any one idea more fixed than another in the 
 public mind of America, it is that all institutions 
 which either are designed to, or which actually do 
 teach or disseminate religion, must be maintained ex- 
 clusively by the voluntary contributions ot the people, 
 and in no case must their support be taxed out of 
 either the people by a poll-lax, or out of their property 
 by a per cent. tax. If it be true that such religious 
 societies have been attending to the duty of the State, 
 and therefore should receive the money of the State, 
 let that fact excuse past donations to religious chari- 
 ties, but it cannot justify us, under our new Govern- 
 ment, in any such further neglect of one duty as must 
 be made up lor by doing violence to the sentiment of 
 the land as well as to that sound principle which ordains 
 the absolute and utter independence of religion from 
 the State. Orphan homes, as well as asylums lor the 
 aged and infirm, are as much necessities which the 
 Government should provide as are Schools, Hospitals, 
 Insane Asylums, Workhouses and Prisons. And the 
 unwisdom of any such course of Public School man- 
 agement as comjiels Roman Catholics and Jews to open 
 suecial schools of their own is a flagrant wrong and in- 
 justice to such citizens which tliey should have the 
 power to prevent. But the Public School and its man- 
 agement generally is here alluded to, not to discuss 
 the respecuve rights ot Deists and Christians in our 
 schools, but to place it in its true position as part of a 
 plan needful tor perpetuating our republican institu- 
 tions, and for securing to intelligence, education and 
 experience that important voice it ought to possess, 
 without denying to even the most unlettered that rep- 
 resentation and voice to which as part of the governed 
 people they ore entitled. 
 
 Twelfth — The qualifications prescribed by Congress 
 for voters, in order to elect National Representatives, 
 should entitle such voters to elect State legislators, 
 nor should any other qualifications be permitted — 
 moreover the vote for Slate and National Representa- 
 tives should be deposited at one and the same time, 
 which day of election should be uniform throughout 
 the nation, on which occasion, also, the vote for Presi- 
 dent should be cast. In like manner the Congression- 
 ally ordained qualifications of voters for National Sen- 
 ators, and none others, should entitle such voters to a 
 voice in the election of State Senators, and the votes 
 for these two oflScers should be cast at the same time, 
 and one month later than the election for Representa- 
 tives. So, also, the qualifications required by CongresB 
 to vote for Representatives and President should be 
 sufDcient and necessary to secure a vote for the Gov- 
 ernor of any State ; but if Congress should ever see fit 
 to require special qualifications in order to vote for 
 President, for instance a property qualification, a 
 third election day would need to be ordained for the 
 election of President and Governor, the votes for 
 which two officers should be cast at the same time and 
 the day be uniform throughout the land. 
 
 The very reverse of all this now is true. No one 
 can now vote for Congressman, according to our Con • 
 
[14] 
 
 Btitution, except those who by permission of the varl- ! 
 OU3 States are entitled to vote for State Representatives. 
 In this way loyal citizens cf the nation may be de- 
 barred a vote for Congressmeu, while an unnaturalized ] 
 alien, an insolent Mormon or a hostile rebel may be 
 endowed with such a right. It is part of that unique i 
 attempt of our forefathers to create a General Govern- ' 
 ment without creating a perfect nation, endowed, as i 
 every nation is and of necessity must be, with absolute 
 supremacy and sole sovereignty. The oppressions of 
 Britain upon her American colonies begat on the part 
 of the pe.jple of the colonies a very natural dread of 
 any power superior to their own, so that they were 
 willing to form only such a nation as should leave the 
 determination of vital national powers with each State 
 Government — votersliip for Congressmen, for instance 
 — and State equality in the Senate, and inequality of 
 representation lor Presidential elections by the device 
 of the Electoral College. Experience, however, having 
 demonstrated the insufficiency of such a partial I-a- 
 tional Government and the groundlessness for just tears 
 of perfect nationality, as a new declaration to the 
 world of revolution, when we assume that complete, per- 
 fect and unambiguous nationality In our Constitution 
 which, by a general declaration of independence and 
 subsequent outward acts, we long since assumed among 
 the nations of the earth, (and thereby developed from 
 allied, confederated and united colonists to one nation 
 in sentiment, before we became fully and perfectly a 
 nation in our fundamental law), we must reveise the 
 order of our fathers and base the government of the 
 nation directly and solely upon the will of the gov. 
 erned people within the national domains, regarded as 
 a whole, and base the State Governments, not exclu- 
 sively upon the will of the State citizens, but primarily 
 upon the will of the nation, any one of whose citizens 
 has a right to all the privileges of citizenship in each 
 State. 
 
 Thirteenth— Owing to the telegraph and to steam, 
 as the world now lives as much in one year as for- 
 merly it did in two, the term for tenure of ofhce by both 
 legislators and our Chief Executives should be con- 
 formed to the times In which we live. Our Represent- 
 atives should hold office only one year, which would 
 require annual elections for them. Our Senators 
 should hold office for three years, one Senator being 
 elected every year, while two would hold over— the 
 number of Senators for each State being three under 
 the new Constitution Instead of two under the present. 
 The Presidential and Gubernatorial term should be two 
 years, and no President should be eligible tore-election 
 who has served three Presidential terms, whether con- 
 secutive or not 
 
 Fourteenth — "I am a Roman citizen," Is a sentence 
 that once commanded the respect of the world. It 
 was talismanic— no monarch, even, dare molest the 
 citizen of Rome. " I am an American citizen " 
 Is a talismanic utterance yet destined to thrill man. 
 kind with friendly awe. The time has even nowcoaie 
 when throughout this continent it should command 
 respect and safety, while at no distant day no more 
 potent document will ever issue from our Department 
 of State than that certificate of citizenship in the 
 Great Republic of America, issued, as it should be, to 
 
 all citizens (whether native-born or naturalize J), and 
 bearing the nation's Great Seal. Without such certifi- 
 cate, each tenth year renewed upon freih oath of loy- 
 alty, no one should be allowed to vote, at any election, 
 or to Bit upon any jury. State or National. 
 
 Such certificates, each bearing its own number, 
 should be the basis of a national system of registry, to 
 be kept at the seat of Government, as an adjunct of 
 the Census Bureau ; for as the only rightful source of 
 authority for all human government is the constltu- 
 tionally expressed wiU of the governed themselves, 
 it is fundamentally important that the methods of 
 ascertaining the will of the governed should be the 
 most perfect which it is possible to devise. 
 
 Tbe national registry should be so kept that poll 
 Usts for every election district could be prepared from 
 It, designating the voters of the -listrict by name, ag«, 
 number and such other marks for identification as ex- 
 perience should show to be desirable and practicable. 
 To facilitate the formation, perfection and preserva- 
 tion in efficiency of such a registry, the Assessor. 
 ol each election district shoulj be constituted <a- ojicio 
 registry officers, and in their offices, under adequate 
 penalties for neglect, every birth, naturalization, 
 death and criminal conviction should be recorded, to 
 be by that office transmitted to the sei.t of national 
 government for registration. 
 
 A crimlual conviction, under which the criminal 
 might be sentenced to imprisonment for a year, should 
 render new naturalization needful, the beginning of 
 the naturalization term to date from the discharge of 
 the prisoner ; at which time, also, be should be privi- 
 leged to assume a new name. No pardon by either a 
 Governor or a President should be able to remove 
 their legal necessity lor renaturalization in order to 
 vote and sit on juries; and the new certificate of citl- 
 zensLlp for such citizen, whether he assumes a new 
 came or not, should bear a new registry number, the 
 previous number being canceled upon criminal convic- 
 tion as if he had die!. 
 
 When a voter should remove from one election dis- 
 trict, either out of the country or Into a new election 
 district, he should be required to record that fact with 
 the Assessor of his late election district, and a certifi- 
 cate of the same, duly authenticated, should be issued 
 to him, without cost ; which should be surrendered to 
 the Assessor in the new election district, whUe both 
 Assessors should imTredlately apprise the Census Bu- 
 reau of the issuance or receipt of the same. 
 
 Certificates of removals, by simply reciUng the 
 number of the applicant's certificate of citizenship, in 
 addition to his name, could speedily and certainly' be 
 traced, even If a hundred of Smiths, Browns and 
 Joneses, and all of them Johns at that, decided simul- 
 taneously to change their voting residences. 
 
 To prevent delay at the polls, the right to deposit a 
 
 vote should depend solely upon the surrender to the 
 
 officers of elecUon ol an Assessor's permit to vote, 
 
 which permits should he issued in accordance with the 
 
 following rules : 
 
 1. No Assessor should issue a permit to any one 
 
 ; who=e name is not officially returned to him from the 
 
 I seat of government as a voter in a diitrict over which 
 
 , he presides. 
 
[15] 
 
 2. No permit Bboulci Issue except upon preseDtatlon 
 to tbe Assessor lor ln;pectloD, of the voter's certificate 
 of Ditlonal citizenship, at least one montL Liefure aoy 
 electicD. 
 
 8. No permit to Tote should be Issued until the ap- 
 plicant had solemnly affirmed (incurring the penalties 
 of perjury if convicted of willfully false alBrmatioo) to 
 tome such pledge as the following : 
 
 " I, John Smith, do eoiemnly aEBrm before Thomas 
 Brown, the lawful Assessor of tbe One Ilunlred and 
 Thirteenth Election District of tbe Great Republic of 
 America, that I am the person described in the na- 
 tional certificate of citizenship (numbered as 1 2 8 4 
 5 6 7), by me submitted to his inspection, and that to 
 tbe best of my knowledge and belief I am lawfully en- 
 tilled to vote at the One Hundred and Twenty-third 
 election, to be held on the first Tuesday in June, 1878, 
 at the polls of the One Hundred and Thirteeth Election 
 District. And I hereby solemnly pledge mvself that 
 my votes then and there to be deposited shall not be 
 influenced by any consideration of special personal ad- 
 vantage or gratification to myself, at that time, past, 
 present, or to come ; and especially do I pledge myielf 
 to my fellow citizens, to the Government and to man- 
 kind to allow no hope of personal gain to influence 
 either of the votes I shall be ectitled to cast, whether 
 such gain be direct or contingent, or whether It be a 
 gain of money, other property, or Interests In prop- 
 erty, or a gain of some position, or office of profit, 
 trust or honor. On the contrary, I hereby solemnly 
 aflBrm, Invoking all the penalties of perjury for false- 
 hood, that my vote shall be given, for whcm It maybe, 
 solely because, in my best julgment, alter all due 
 efforts to acquaint myself with tbe considerations 
 which have a proper bearing in the case, I believe their , 
 election to the respective offices for which they shall be 
 designated will best subserve the public good and sc- ' 
 cure the welfare of all the people, as well as tend to the 
 Improvement and perpetuation of the benefits of selt- 
 government for ourselves, for our posterity and lor all 
 mankind." 
 
 4. Every citizen should pay to the Assessor a poll , 
 tax at ir before the time of receiving his permit to | 
 vote. This tax should be uniform throughout the land, 
 and its amount should be determined by Congress, or 
 by assessment >n pursuance of Congressional law. The 
 neelect of any rltlien to take out his voting permit 
 should subject him to the payment of four limes the 
 amount of the poll tax ; and the neglect of aliens or 
 discharged criminals to institute steps for naturaliza- 
 tion should sulject them to the payment' of a like 
 amount, which should be collected uader such penal- 
 ties as Congress might find necessary. 
 
 5. It should not be essential to voting that the voter 
 should pffEonally deposit his or her own vote. If In- 
 convenient or distasteful to any voter to go to the polls. 
 If able to write, he should be required to sign his bal- 
 lot and Inclose it, together with his or her permit, and 
 address It to the cflicers of election, who, en opening 
 It, should compare the signature on the ballot with the 
 signature which the Assessor should always require to 
 be given (by all who are able to write) on the back of 
 the permit to vote when he issues It. The bearer of 
 such a vote siiould be entitled to see it opened and de- 
 
 ' posited In the ballot-box as If It were bia own vot«. 
 
 Parties not able to write should be obliged p^gonaliy 
 
 to deponlt their own ballots. 
 j 6. To lessen the opportunltle* for fraud lo tbe tAfj> 
 
 tlons, every voter shoulo have the right of ..«oin« ol. 
 
 own ballot, though It should not be obligatory ot any 
 
 one to afljx his name who prefers to maiiitajn tiie j>rl. 
 '■ vacy of bis vote. 
 
 The vital and fundamental Importaiuce of »<xa« mc^ 
 system of national rejfietry and voting a« -Cbjt fore^O' 
 ing becomes more and more api;^»reiit irteo we poo^ier 
 methods tf cure for tbe Atr<x:Hiii:s eomic'.turt la va* 
 States and TerriU^ries since the war. Tii« Keai{Mt« 
 and New Orleans maisacres are iliuttnxiami «f wkat 
 may be done even by the olB«Ul* U a k»eai G«Ter». 
 ment when votersMp and Jury rii^hts ax« <»tiiwiiM><^ 
 not by the nation as a whole, but ty a k>eal tam^ftktm 
 of an exclusive right to govern by aoy -'rrr «f a State 
 or municipality. The need be«oaaesi 
 we see our Supreme Court aDBoUii^teat Mt^ i 
 to secure Loyalty to the natia* itti 
 in the government of the Stai«a. Vlthtke4 
 of all voters and jurors determined I 
 ernment, no such acts as threataMd '. 
 blood and camare could recur, bat eaaU the peace tt 
 Missouri be imperiled or the live« «< thekeMce«f X^ 
 nessee be endangered for ample fideCtyte Ac aafiMol 
 cau-e and for the support of \he amlftnlf1»fai.iaM» 
 Government of tbe South. Neither eacU Oe H^ 
 handed outrages so long perj^etreted iaUtabbefe»- 
 longed if both voters and j^rora were ieti umiaiuA if 
 Lational law and tbe poll Ustf were finaiAcdfey^H 
 National Bureau of the Cenias. 
 
 Fifteenth — Representation in ri«i(,iiii AaiAi te 
 proportioned to tbe number of Toten !■ ( 
 and the State LegLslatore Eboold be 
 viile the Slate into election distrieta 
 the number of Cone ressmen, that i 
 8« may be practicable, should eouaiaaa ( 
 of voters, tbe basis of such 
 tional census. Such disirietlog 
 the raUfica'.ion of tlie national Senate ia aHer t» fa- 
 lidity. 
 
 Sixteenth— Cnder our present OactSatiaa Cceck 
 taxes are impo&able by the natloB wmtj )■ frapoetaiiK 
 to State repiesentalioD, ana vitb bo ngMit a fclrTW 
 to value. This grew out of slavery, fast as tte ft 'i ji 
 dentil Electoral College did, and vbk the ■haiiliaa of 
 slavery bath of these fon^i sli:;aliii he 
 Under the new nation diiect taxes A e wli 
 upon all property in ihe ni:ion, real aad pi- ii wa M' v'a- 
 cluding all sticks and tonds>, in propcitioa to its 
 market value, and should in nc wise be eoanected 
 with the number of inhabitants or To:er» ia any State, 
 except thai durng such trarquility wiihia any State 
 as in the judgment of Congress n;qair« ao naacnal 
 force to secure it, each State shocld aaasaUy receive 
 Irom the national treasury, for the purpose of defraj- 
 Ing the expenses of the State Government, a share of a 
 general appropriation by Congress, which should be 
 proportioned lo the number of voters ia each Slate aa 
 compared with all the voters in the nation ; and m 
 order to render Siate dependecce effectual, is w«U a» 
 
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