The President and Congress.
Our dream of peace is over. The wish of Dr. Nehemiah Adams, a wish to which every good man has responded, "that we might have a Sabbath of rest from the slavery agitation," is denied us. None will feel this disappointment more keenly than the Puritan ministers of the land. Compelled by a clear sense of duty to resist the assaults which the so-called Democratic party has made for years upon the law of God and the rights of men, as well as to rebuke the pusillanimity of their political opponents in the stupid compromises they made with their foes—measures which already are beginning to stand out in history as the veriest tomfoolery of politics—our ministers, notwithstanding, had no taste for this sort of work. When, therefore, our late President saw his way clear to issue his proclamation of emancipation, and the successful close of the war ratified the act, and put the iron seal of an irrevocable destiny upon it, there was a universal feeling of relief. A distasteful job was finished. Books on slavery, debates on slavery, sermons on slavery, congressional documents full of shallow platitudes, ecclesiastical reports illustrating, by innumerable dexterities, the act of how not to say it—in fact, the whole literature of a discussion about a truth which we had solemnly pronounced in our organic law to be self-evident—was gathered together, and either committed to the flames, or stored in great bundles under the slopes of ancient attics, to gather dust and feed mice. Newspapers ceased to be documents of importance. A few minutes after breakfast devoted to a glance at news headings, the reading of the first two or three sentences of the editorials, with a dip here and there into a congressional speech, was enough for the men of our toilsome profession. Three things were regarded as settled. The slaves had been emancipated by Lincoln, the slaveholding aristocracy had been practically exterminated by the war, and the freedmen were to be protected, at least in their rights of person and property, by Johnson. These three things being settled, the confidence was that the Government could not go dangerously astray, whatever policy it might adopt. In this conviction our clergy have neglected the study of political questions, always distasteful by the side of the sublime themes they are accustomed to handle—more, perhaps, than at any former period in our national history. The present crisis, therefore, finds many men, who are accustomed to form public sentiment at its very spring-heads, a little perplexed with the utter confusion of things, and not a little annoyed that these paltry questions in the very elements of ethics are again demanding discussion. There is reason enough for perplexity. Here is Andrew Johnson the Fierce, who a few months ago was uttering threats of punishment against traitors, which many of us deemed both unjust and unwise, now denouncing patriots in terms equally vindictive. Here is the New York Times, at one end of Park Row, lovingly hobnobbing with the New York World at the other. Here is Henry Ward Beecher, bestavered with the praises of the New York News, and making an "exceedingly favorable impression," in the ears, upon Pollard, of the Richmond Examiner—that foul, insolent, bloody sheet, which during the war gloated over the sufferings of our sons and brothers on Belle Isle, and which, since the peace, has been suppressed by Grant and revived by Johnson. Here is Wm. H. Seward denouncing abolitionists, and exulting in the President's mob-inspiring threats against the believers in a "higher law," to whose supreme requirements they would make the Constitution and the laws of the land conform. On every side the old political landmarks are removed, and the old trusted leaders, from the President down, are trampling upon principles with which their personal name and fame are identified. Meanwhile, the vipers of society are creeping out from their dens, and hissing in the face of the sun; the subdued and sucing rebels are stalking forth, whip in hand, "masters of the situation;" the whole race of time-servers are growing wondrously "prudent," and are counseling "moderation" till they can see clearly "on which side their bread is buttered;" while, among otherwise good men, the large class commonly known as "conservatives," true to their instincts, are anxiously watching to learn how they can most readily purchase ease and peace for the moment, at any cost of future woe and strife. In this confusion, society must gather itself, like a disordered army, upon its base of operation. The men who are accustomed to resort to first principles, and to teach the people the application of those principles in all the practical affairs of life, must again take up the not altogether agreeable business of counsel and warning. What then are the actual facts? 1. Slavery is not abolished.
The vagrant laws of the South, administered by the slaveholding aristocracy, are amply sufficient to bring the whole black population back to their former condition in a year's time. 2. The slaveholding aristocracy itself is not punished, nor even restricted in its power for mischief. The character of those men, as a class, is written in fire and blood all over the land. They have earned the execrations of the civilized world. For arrogance, for cruelty, for cold, hard, unyielding selfishness, for falsehood, treachery, and pride, for all crimes, public and private, which man can commit or Heaven abhor, the match of the little knot of men and women who have hitherto ruled the South and the country, cannot be found outside of the pit of endless woe. If their acts have not satisfied the people of this country that such is the real character of the old slaveholding caste of the South, then fiends from the pit might claim to be "high-toned gentlemen," without a challenge from any quarter. But the people are satisfied on this point. And but for the wide-spread conviction that the desolation of war had cut off a large portion of this class, and that its confiscations and losses would render the remainder incapable of mischief—in a word, that it had been practically exterminated, there would have been no sense of security anywhere. All the disposition which has appeared to remit extreme punishment, and to deal kindly and generously with the South, has been predicated upon the idea that this formerly dominant caste was destroyed. It is not necessary to show how this vile, dangerous class of men are creeping back into power. The shameful fact is before the world, and we must shape our course accordingly.
The freedmen are not protected in any one of their rights, nor are they permitted to protect themselves. The history of the Freedman's Bureau bill has demonstrated the impossibility of securing for them anything more than a nominal protection, with the consent of the present President. We are to stand before high Heaven guilty of inviting the negroes to our banner, of using them to win a triumph which we could have gained without them only after long years of desolating war, and then abandoning them to their merciless foes. Is there a God of justice? and will he not visit us in vengeance for such treachery as this? Is the history of oppression and cruelty written in vain upon the world's annals? Is the lesson of this war so soon forgotten? Must the North be desolated as the South has been, before we can understand that130there is a God above us who will not see the weak trampled down by the strong, nor the trusting, generous, and noble betrayed by the selfish, calculating nation they have defended and saved? J. P. G.—N. Y. Independent.