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Which Congress?

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The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Oct 9, 1866

FromReview and Herald, Vol. 28, No. 19.

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“Which Congress?”

Such declarations as the following concerning the intended usurpation of the President, from such public men as Mr. Washburne, are significant. We quote from the N. Y. Tribune. Under the heading of “Which Congress?” it says:—
“The Hon. E. B. Washburne, in Illinois, having been invited to meet his Johnsonite competitor, Mr. Thomas J. Turner, in a public discussion, opens battle at once with a bomb-shell. Mr. Turner advises his opponent that he has been nominated by ‘a National Union Convention,’ whereupon Mr. Washburne exacts the following capital test:
“Before accepting your invitation, I wish to know from you what Congress you are a candidate for? If you are a candidate for the Congress to be composed of Northern Copperheads and Southern Rebels, which it is semi-officially proclaimed that President Johnson is to recognize, to the exclusion of the constitutional Congress of the United States, then I desire to say that I am not a candidate for any such Congress, and that I do not propose entering into a canvass for any office for which I am not a candidate.
“If, on the other hand, you will certify to the people of this district that you are a candidate for the legal and constitutional Congress of the United States, and for a member of that House of Representatives for the Fortieth Congress, which shall be called to order, according to the established precedent, by the clerk of the present House, and to which no member shall be admitted without taking the ‘iron clad’ oath of loyalty, and that you will repudiate the illegal and revolutionary Congress which President Johnson proposes to recognize, then I have to state, I will accept your invitation with great pleasure.”
“Mr. Washburne’s test might be generally applied throughout the canvass. The people will not fail to see, either by the silence or open commission of the President’s friends, how far they approve his programme of usurpation as officially threatened and foreshadowed. Which Congress? Choose!”