Franklin Repository

It is no longer a matter of doubt that the President will veto two more bills lately passed by Congress, for the reason that they do not serve the interest of traitors and their sympathizers. The last Congress passed an enabling act for the admission of Colorado as a State, and the people of that territory proceeded to frame a constitution, ratify it by a vote of the people, elect Governor and other State officers, and U. S. Senators and a Representative. By some irregularity in the primary proceedings of the people, President Johnson felt unwilling to admit Colorado by proclamation as Congress had directed, and he referred the matter to Congress by a special message asking a curative act so as to enable the State to be admitted. He had not then perfected his compact with traitors and copperheads, and he manifestly desired Colorado to become a State at an early day. But since then he has assumed to control all the departments of the government and to the success of his mad schemes of usurpation all else must defer. He cannot corrupt and subordinate the popular branch of Congress, for it derives its power directly from the people; but he must control or subordinate the Senate so as to defeat the loyal hopes of the nation, and Colorado confronts him in his despotism. She has been guilty of electing a Union Governor, a Union legislature, two Union U. S. Senators who can neither be intimidated or corrupted, and for this crime Andrew Johnson has resolved that Colorado shall not be admitted. If not already vetoed, it will be done within a very few days. Thus the measure he recommended to Congress by special message but a few months ago, he will now defeat by the exercise of the veto power, and solely because the Senators are loyal men and not traitors.

It is a fact that will stand out with sad prominence in the history of this government, that an Executive, chosen by loyal votes because of his most earnest hostility to treason and traitors, has interposed the most despotic power to destroy the just power of the loyal sentiment of the nation, while he is exhausting his official patronage to the uttermost to bring into our legislative halls the faithless men who made wanton war, and now come to resume their fatal power crimsoned with the blood of our brethren. While Andrew Johnson forbids the admission of Colorado, because it is a loyal State, he insists upon the immediate admission of eleven disloyal States, and would crown the bloody hands of treason with the highest honors, and charge it with the destiny of the Republic just saved from dismemberment by the most appaling sacrifices. If there is a deeper depths of perfidy, a blacker shade of treason than that displayed by the Executive in his deliberate and persistent efforts to surrender to rebel statesmen, the government to which they have just surrendered the sword only when they were powerless for further butchery, it has never been fathomed by one whose name stains the history of the American people. It matters not by what pretexts the President shall attempt to screen his faithless purpose. It will be well understood. Every patriot will bow his head with consuming sorrow at the consciousness that the fruits of wicked war are wasted by a wicked ruler, while every traitor will shout his triumph over the blow aimed at the vitals of the Republic he so cordially hates because it has vindicated its title to Freedom.

Another bill in the hands of the Executive, which passed both branches by nearly if not quite every Union vote, known as the Habeas Corpus act, will be vetoed for the same reasons which dictate the defeat of the admission of Colorado. It is distasteful to traitors, and hence it cannot be approved. Rebels rule in all the State governments organized by Johnson's usurpation, and Union officers of the army, and privates who enlisted in our army in the rebel States and offered their lives to save the unity of the States, are now at the mercy of the rebel governors, judiciary, sheriffs, juries and intensely rebel laws. They are therefore indicted for every real or imaginary destruction of property or injury to individuals while serving in the army, and rebel vengeance gluts its fiendish fury upon them for their triumphs under the flag of the Union. To protect such men--men who have been faithful among the faithless, the act in question was passed, and as it is designed to shield loyal citizens and not traitors, it is offensive to Andrew Johnson, and he will veto it. In this he is but consistent, and faithful to the infamy with which he has shadowed himself. Had Congress sent him instead a bill to protect traitors from the just punishment their crimes demand, it would have received his approval with alacrity; but to propose to him any measure that protects a patriot from the cruel revenge of a traitor, is to evoke the edict of the maddened despot forbidding it. It is well for the Republic that it has been sorely tried before and the matchless fidelity of the people established, or there would be few who love Freedom and Justice who would not now yield to despair. But the same people who maintained four years of gigantic war, with its wide-spread bereavements and desolation will not turn from their broken circles or the untimely graves of their holy sacrifices, to follow perfidious ambition in its effort to crown treason with victory, and cloud the nation's living heroes and martyred dead with dishonor. Since treachery must envelope the highest sanctuary of power, we welcome it in its hideous nakedness, for it will arouse the People, and the People, as in times past, WILL SAVE THE REPUBLIC!

The report of the joint Committee on Reconstruction, and the ratification of the vital feature of the report by the decisive vote of the House on Thursday last, present the great problem of restoration to the country in a tangible form. The time is past now when the purpose of Congress can be misrepresented by those who seek to serve the cause of traitors. After patiently investigating the condition of the rebellious States--taking the testimony of leading rebels and loyalists in those States, the committee united every Republican on the amendments of the constitution and the bills reported, and they declare to the nation and to the world, in substance if not in form, the position of the Union party on the restoration of the rebel States to fellowship.

There are many Union men who do not fully coincide with the entire report of the committee. Some would liberalize the third amendment and thus leave treason practically without a penalty; others would make the disfranchisement cease only with the death of those who had waged war against the government, and others would demand that the loyal men of the South, without regard to color or condition, be clothed with the ballot as a measure of justice alike to themselves and to the country. But while there is great diversity of opinion as to the details of the proper policy of reconstruction, we believe that the Union men will unite cordially and earnestly in supporting any measure that may be accepted by the Union men of Congress. What the loyal men of the nation most desire is to have some definite policy, not wholly dictated by traitors, that can be made the fixed and settled policy of the government. Considering that the President seems to have no higher ambition than to clothe treason with honors and power, it is well for the Union party to look to practical results and not sacrifice all by refusing what can be attained. It is manifest that any penalty for treason and any security against renewed discord and war, must be achieved over the head and in defiance of the power and patronage of the President, who reached his position by the suffrages of the millions of loyal people whose convictions he now so fiercely antagonizes, and Congress must therefore calculate well its position and make the future safe by securing all that the present can give.

We have long since yielded confiscation and the punishment of criminality of the leaders of the rebellion. They marked their desolated pathway of power by the most vigorous confiscation, and punished unto death the avowal of loyal sentiments in the dominions of treason, but with an Executive who is clearly committed to save them harmless in person and property, it is impracticable. The result is that loyal men must bear the crushing debt created by treason, and the men who, in violation of all accepted rules of war and every dictate of humanity, deliberately murdered thousands of Union heroes in prison pens, are now, with the President, attempting to dictate to the government that conquered them, the terms on which they will consent to fill our legislative halls again. In this work the apostate Johnson and the traitors who are flinging their insolence into the face of the nation under the protection of the President, have the cordial sympathy and hearty cooperation of the entire Democratic party, and its success will be the success of treason and of the President in the pending struggle.

We trust that the Senate will take speedy action on the report of the committee. Until Congress shall present to the country with its high sanction, a practical solution of the great question, the power of treason and its sympathizers will be potent to embarrass the government and divide the people. But when both branches of Congress shall declare upon what terms traitors shall be restored to the rights of property and citizenship, and the appeal is made to the people to sustain that action, the contest will be well nigh won. It cannot be doubted that every loyal State would promptly call its legislature and ratify any amendment presented by Congress as essential to the safety of the government, and with such an expression in favor of Congress, treason would be glad to yield rather than have the aroused resentment of the people whose forbearance has already been severely tested. Let the country have the amendments speedily, and the Union men will be fully prepared for the struggle. It will be desperate but decisive, and it will be the last great struggle of traitors to subvert the government they failed to destroy by causeless war.

The following letter is from a highly respectable citizen of Memphis. Its truth is vouched for by high military authority:

MEMPHIS, May 2, 1866.
Hon. W. G. Brownlow:

DEAR SIR: Within the last twenty-four hours scenes have transpired in this city which will send a thrill of horror throughout the Union. The diabolical spirit which has been manifested by the rebel, negro-hating party is enough to make one ashamed of his race. For a long time the Irish police have been only too glad to get an opportunity to 'kill a nigger.' Anything was sufficient to cause the arrest of one, and five dollars could procure his release, according to report. The colored people have hated them, very naturally, and some of the colored soldiers would fight them. Yesterday some colored troops were paid off and got into a row with the police. One or two were killed on both sides, and then the police were called for help, and went into an indiscriminate slaughter of the blacks, especially the soldiers, wherever found. From all that I can learn, twenty-five or thirty blacks have been killed, nearly all of them without the least provocation. On several of our streets last evening, if a black man appeared, quietly going home from his day's labor, he was immediately followed and shot at, and in many instances most brutally treated. The wicked ferocity of the mob stopped not with the colored men; several colored women were killed. Last evening, on South street, some were shot, their houses broken open, trunks robbed, etc. A little girl went to a store this morning, who left her mother dying from a stab received from a white man last night. One colored woman was shot down on Union street this morning for nothing. A white woman told me this morning that three colored men were shot down near her gate for no provocation whatever. The poor fellows had no arms. One of them said: "Don't shoot me, gentlemen! I have had nothing to do with any disturbance." But the police cried out "Shoot him!" and at once three balls were fired into him; and he fell there, and groaned before her gate until twelve o'clock at night, when he died. This morning a man came out of his house and shot down two negroes without the least occasion. The hellish spirit manifested by many of the old rebels has been shocking in the last degree. They are only too glad to get a chance to kill a nigger. They were out on the street with revolvers in their hands, ready to kill at once. This I saw myself. A report was started this morning that the freedmen's teachers started the riot. An old traitor grumly asked me if it was true. Another scoundrel, who ought long since to have had the halter, told me that if he had his way, he would begin with the folks who had been preaching up these things and putting arms into their hands. All this, you will perceive, is significant. Loyal people here are not considered safe on the streets to-day, but I have kept about and gathered other facts which I need not here mention. The whole matter has been little else than a second Fort Pillow massacre.