Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Hurlburt-Week-6 Title A name given to the resource This Week in Reconstruction, June 8-13, 1868 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Joshua Hurlburt Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource June 8-13, 1868 Description An account of the resource Reconstruction is a failure. The Radical party is using Reconstruction for their own personal gain as they control the Congress, they pass laws to further advance the Northern states' economy while they keep the Southern states in Reconstruction forcing them to create new Constitutions which have to be amended individually by Congress when they could have drafted their own Constitution that each state would have to pass meaning "the South could have been reconstructed in any ten hours of the last three years". This misuse of power has led into the Nation's economy as the debt continues to pile up, and there is a general unrest in the citizens for they do not know what will come next. The general discontent with the citizens is directly related to the past three years of Reconstruction "wrought by a greedy and unscrupulous party - a party of traitors to the Constitution and the national welfare. They have been quite enough to open the eyes of any people of ordinary intelligence to the evils flowing from the misrule of this selfish party; and we believe their legitimate effect upon an independent and sagacious people have begun to operate, and are daily extending their influence". In order for this abuse of power to stop, there must be a new approach to Reconstruction "based upon reason, national safety, and pure patriotism be adopted in its place". The Radical Party must put aside their selfish greed, and think about the Country first, but asking this of such an immoral party is like asking the devil not to sin. Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Transcription Any written text transcribed from a sound The Union - Shall it be Redeemed? The fate of this Union has been for months poised in the balance. The Emperor has been in one scale - the people in the other. Never did the balance represent a more doubtful question of superior weight. Were the people possessed of force and independence, intelligence and virtue, sufficient to press down their scale, and settle the question in their flavor, or was the Emperor, by reason of their lightness and incapacity to govern themselves, to weigh them down, and take possession of the Government? It was a matter of grave doubt in the minds of all reflecting men. Yet there has recently appeared some cheering light in the horizon, suggesting a hope that the days of this republic are not yet numbered. Could the revolutionary party in possession of the Government at the end of the war have accepted the truth that was apparent to all honset men, that the whole South, after its defeat, was as loyal to the Government and the Constitution as any people in the broad limits of the Union, and at once admitted them back within the pale of the National Confederation, the evils of the war would soon have been wiped out, and we should to-day have been no prosperous as we were before the war. The prosperity of the country would have been such that the public debt would not now be regarded a serious burthen. But it was deemed necessary to their interests by the predominant party that the southern States should be admitted only as Radical States - as States in favor of continuing the offices and emoluments of the Government in their hands. Taking the census-table for their guide, they saw by shaving down a portion of the white people by disfranchisements, and conferring the elective franchise upon the negroes, they could probably carry the whole southern States in their favor. They had no confidence in the whites; but they knew they could, with the help of the Freedmen's Bureau, carry all the blacks on their side. This is the essence of the present plan of reconstruction, whicb, after three years, finds the South more oppressed, prostrate, and despondent than ever, and the national interests suffering from a general want of confidence, universal complaint of the burthens of taxation, and a serious decline of the national wealth by the disorganization of the industry in that part of the Union which before the war furnished two-thirds of the staple exports of the nation. How could it be possible that such a state of things should not make a deep impression on the public mind and arouse a wide-spread dissatisfaction with the administration of the government? The South could have been reconstructed in any ten hours of the last three years. Her people were loyal. Her systems of economy were complete - her people were law-lov-and law-abiding - her laboring class was quiet, well provided, and contented - and the period of return to order and submission to the authority of the National Government might have been as smooth as a summer's sea, and full of the sunshine of peace and thrift. But partisanry, which is ever usurping for its low and contemptible advantages that which belongs to mankind, prevented this harmonious process, which would so soon have restored kind feelings and peace to the whole nation. Three years have we passed in the sad condition wrought by a greedy and unscrupulous party - a party of traitors to the Constitution and the national welfare. They have been quite enough to open the eyes of any people of ordinary intelligence to the evils flowing from the misrule of this selfish party; and we believe their legitimate effect upon an independent and sagacious people have begun to operate, and are daily extending their influence. "We have seen no better sign of the refluent tide of popular sentiment - the awakening of the people to the faithlessness of their public servants at Washington - than the letter of General Grant and the exposition of the opinions of Judge Chase. Now, neither of these publications could have been given to the world had their authors not felt that they were in consonance with public opinion, or rather the tendency of that rapidly changing public opinion which will ultimately entirely repudiate the revolutionary party and condemn all its excesses as inhuman and hostile to the national welfare. General Grant tells the most bitter, ruthlees, and relentless party the world has ever seen, which had nominated him, that new issues are constantly arising, and that public opinion is constantly changing with reference to those issues which are now existing; and therefore it is impossible to make pledges as to the course of his administration should he be elected. What is this but a confession that the public opinion is about to condemn the measures and opinions of the very party which nominated him, and that therefore he cannot promise to carry out their views or their measures? There never was an instance of so plain a repudiation by the nominee of the principles of the party which nominated him! Nothing but an evident, an unquestionable revolution in public opinion could have suggested an act so openly rebellious. General Grant emphatically and indisputably tolls the Radicals that he cannot promise to carry out their principles. He must obey the public opinion. We must have peace, he says - and this peace can only jbe attained by conforming to the wishes of the people, based upon their sober second thought, with reference to the material interests of the nation and harmony of the sections. The opinions of Judge Chase as set forth in the exposition of the New York Herald, are not low encouraging in their relation to public sentiment. Not meaning to attribute to the distinguished Judge anything like insincerity, we may assume that sentiments such as he has put forth would hardly have found such publicity if there had not been an unmistakable change in the public opinions of the people. To oppose the whole system of Radical reconstruction and claim for the southern States the right to regulate the question of suffrage for themselves is so completely at war with the whole policy of the party with which Judge Chase has been identified, that it is impossible that he should have openly assumed that position unless there had been some assurance that practical good would result from it - that sort of practical good which may be secured by public opinion strong enough to carry it out From these two important indications we have stronger reason to hope for a healthy reaction of the public mlnd of the Union than any we have seen. It is beyond question inspired by a weariness and disgust with the abominable reconstruction of Radicalism, which has not restored the Union, but has. nearly ruined important national interests by disorganizing southern industryand placing some of the most refined and enlightehed white communities in the world under negro rule - under the rule of a race of a different color, lately slaves, which, at the least, should have been continued in a probationary state for a term of years to qualify itself for the exercise of the rights of freemen. Supposing this change - so, natural - to be now taking place, and supposing it to be based upon the grounds we have set forth, it cannot be checked in its course until the southern States are reconstructed upon the only safe basis - that of equality among the States and the predominance of the white populations in their government and the preservation of order. In this view the whole of the present system of construction, which has brought only humiliation and misery upon the land, must be repudiated, and a system based upon reason, national safety, and pure patriotism be adopted in its place. Thus the Union may be redeemed! URL http://virginiachronicle.com/cgi-bin/virginia?a=d&d=DD18680608&e=-------en-20--1--txt-txIN-------# Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1868-06-08 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context HurlburtJoshua-18680608-TheUnion-ShallItBeSaved.pdf Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Richmond Daily Dispatch Title A name given to the resource The Union - Shall it be Redeemed?