fundamental laws. These qualifications are empirical and unsound on the admission of universal suffrage, and must give way in logical sequence. A reform to this extent has probably not been practically contemplated by the Radicals in Congress; but a party which prates so much of logical necessities, and preaches the virtue of the sequitur, is under especial obligations to follow its doctrines to their legitimate conclusions.

Leaders of the Radical party, with professions of Negro suffrage hot in their mouths, have been sending advices to Southern Conventions that Negroes should not run for Congress, or aspire to any conspicuous office; that they should be satisfied to fill the lowest seats in political synagogues. They are to vote as much as they please, but not to be voted for. It is an insult even to the low intelligence of the Negro to abuse him thus, and make him an unrewarded instrument of the ambition of white politicians. It is a unilateral citizenship, as offensive to the instincts of justice as to the law of logic. If we are to concede universal suffrage, we must perfect it by universal license to office; it is only the first step of a reform that must proceed to universal demoralization, to the cheapening of all offices, to a wild, unrestrained, vehement competition in political life that will leave nothing good or desirable in it.

But beyond the general considerations of this doctrine of universal suffrage there is a peculiar excess in Mr. Sumner's application of it to the Southern States. It is a mockery added to absurdity, the former as arch and fiendish as the latter is flagrant and flippant. Universal suffrage means for the South Negro suffrage; and the method of enforcing it, with the preliminary conditions of martial law and other machinery of Reconstruction, is of the very essence of despotism. Whatever doubt there may be as to the meaning of a "repub

lican form of government," it certainly and necessarily implies self-government by the people of a State; and the most adventurous dealer in political fancies would scarcely venture the assertion that the form of government dictated by Congress to accomplish Negro suffrage in the South was republican or self-government. The guaranty of a republican form of government is practically violated under pretext of its fulfillment, and is made to mean a power in Congress to impose upon a State a government that is not republican! The South is mocked, by calling the attempt to institute tyranny over her the guaranty of a republican government and by giving the name of kindness to insult and injury. This derision might at least been spared a suffering people. No device was needed. The wrong might have been done with the bold and accustomed declarations of villainy—at least without the effrontery, the brutal mockery of the highwayman who pretends a kindly and protecting care for the effects of the traveler, while rifling his pockets, and leaving him to misery and despair.

A SPECIAL CONSOLATION.

The Radical party vindicating the action of the South in the late war-A new interpretation of "Copperheads"-Speech of George H. Pendleton-Two wars since 1860: one for the Union, the other for the Constitution-President Lincoln's plea of necessity-Precedents of 1776 and 1812-Reasons for the war on the Constitution-Extract from an English publicist-Identity of the Two Rebellions, 1776 and 1861-Extraordinary declaration of President Johnson-Prophecy of the "lost cause regained."

Regarding the chain of unconstitutional acts which Congress has accomplished since the war, there is one great consolatory idea for the South, which scarcely appears to have been developed in the current commentaries of the press. It is the logical, inevitable tendency of such proceedings to vindicate the past war; to suggest that constitutional liberty was really in issue in it, since the Republican party has made such use of its success, and the victors have unmasked such opinions and purposes; and, finally, to exhibit the South, instead of fighting in an odious rebellion, engaged in a noble and admirable contest, not unlike that of 1776. This idea was imperfectly apprehended in the war, but now obtains fuller exposition, a more complete developement in the political sequel. There were men during the war loosely called "Copperheads," whose inclination to the South was much more intelligent than the ordinary sympathies with that combatant; who had obtained the idea that, independently of the issue of the Union, was a great, underlying struggle of constitutional law and traditional liberty, and that Robert E. Lee, in that sense, was fighting his battles for the North, as well as for the South! This idea was far above the vulgar recriminations of party, the common reproach of disloyality, "secession proclivities, etc.; " it was

harboured by a few intelligent persons, who indignantly repelled the charge of community of sentiment with Secessionists and Southern sympathizers, and constantly asserted their attachment to the Union, along with their dissent from the Republican party.

These men were misunderstood by both sections; and the author well recollects how confused were the regards of the South for War Democrats of the McClellan and Pendleton school. But their idea has recently been enlightened; and thoughtful men have already discovered that the past war had the significance of a political revolution, as well as that of a specific contest for the Union. Every historical crisis has its particular occasion, and the tendency of the common mind is to dwell on this occasion, to occupy itself with the mere visible outward event. Thus in the late war there were many who concerned themselves wholly for the Union, and sunk every other consideration in anxiety for its restoration. They did not conceive that superiour significance of the contest, that is now so apparent; they did not understand that the constitutional liberty of the whole country was imperiled; they did not understand that, going on under the forms of rebellious arms, there was a continuation of the great political struggle of 1776.

When George H. Pendleton* of Ohio stood in conspicuous opposition in Congress to its series of war measures, he concluded one of his orations with this fine burst of eloquence :"When your work shall be accomplished, when our Constitu

* With reference to this remarkable representative of the Democratic party during the war, the author has nad recent occasion in a biographical article to describe his political opinions.

"The chief historical interest of Mr. Pendleton's life attaches to his course in Congress during the late war, wherein he was the conspicuous representative of a class or division

tion is dead, when our liberties are gone, when our Government is destroyed, when these States-no longer held secure in their proper position by the power of our matchless Constitution, so that they emulate in accordant action the stars, as by the divine decree they encircle in their mysterious courses the foot-stool of the eternal throne, and extract from the harmony of conflicting elements the true music of the spheres-shall have given place to States discordant, dissevered, belligerent, to a land rent with civil feuds, and drenched in fratricidal blood, history will hold its dread inquest, and in the presence of appalled humanity will render judgment, that base and degenerate children, deserting the teachings of their fathers, deserting the teaching of the past, departing from the ways of pleasantness and peace, rebelling against the wisdom and be

of opinion that has suffered much from misrepresentation, and that claims a peculiar and searching review. It was then the convenient fashion of the Republican party to call all who dissented from them, "Copperheads," and under this venomous term aggregate all the elements of opposition. The classification was as illogical as it was violent; for it cannot escape the candid judgment that the grounds of dissent from the policy of the Republicans in the past war were of the most various character. There were those who sympathized with the South in a sectional sense; there were others, who were merely compassionate, and while admitting the South to be in errour thought her hardly and cruelly punished; there were sentimentalists and humanitarians; but apart from all these was a distinct, firm, intelligent party, which, asserting the inviolability of the Union, and voting men and means to vindicate it, was yet constantly for separating the war from an attempt upon the Constitution, and drawing the line between an appeal to arms for a specific issue and a political revolution involving the laws and traditions of the country. The ground of this party was very high; it suffered reproach, North and South, from misrepresentation; but it is to be remarked that the intelligent men of the South during the war, valued its dissent from the reigning policy at Washington much more than open protestations of sympathy from another class of "Copperheads," in proportion as it was more intelligent, more permanent, and even more effective, because more moderate, in vindication of the principles which rested at the bottom of the contest."

"The Union' was serviceable, as the outward event or occasion usually is in any historical crisis, to inspire the populace and seize its imagination. Mr. Pendleton acknowledged this inspiration; he knew and confessed the value of the Union; but he was unyil. ling in contesting it to assault the Constitution; he saw that Lincoln and his party were "running the machine " in the double groove of a political revolution; and he proposed, however ineffectually, to confine the war to its avowed objects, and to contain it as far as possible within the limits of the Constitution. This is the whole explanation of his course in Congress."