Remarks of Hon. William D. Kelley, of Pennsylvania
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| Partner: | buecher.de |
| Hersteller: | Forgotten Books (Kelley, William D.) |
| Stand: | 2015-08-04 03:50:33 |
Produktbeschreibung
Excerpt from Remarks of Hon. William D. Kelley, of Pennsylvania: In Support of His Proposed Amendment to the Bill The House having under consideration the bill "to guaranty to certain States whose governments have been usurped or overthrown a republican form of government," Mr. Kelley moved to amend the bill by inserting after the words "to enroll all the white male citizens of the United States who may be able to read the constitution thereof," and said: Mr. Speaker: These are indeed terrible times for timid people. Use and wont no longer serve us. The guns traitorously fired upon Fort Sumter threw us all out of the well-beaten ruts of habit, and as the war progresses men find themselves less and less able to express their political views by naming a party or uttering its shibboleth. It is no longer safe for any of us to wait till the election comes and accept the platform and tickets presented by a party. We may have served in its ranks for a life-time and find at last - costly and painful experience being our guide - that to obtain the ends we had in view we should have acted independently of, and in opposition to it and its leaders. In seasons like this, an age on ages telling, the feeblest man in whom there is faith or honesty is made to feel that he is not quite powerless, that duty is laid on him too, and that the force that is in him ought to be expressed in accordance with his own convictions and in a way to promote some end seen or hoped for. The questions with which we have to deal, the grave doubts that confound us, the difficulties that environ us, the results our action will produce, fraught with weal or woe to centuries and constantly-increasing millions, are such as have rarely been confided to a generation. But happily we are not without guidance. Our situation, though novel, does not necessarily cast us upon the field of mere experiment. True, we have not specific precedents which we may safely follow; but the founders of our Government gave us, in a few brief sentences, laws by which we may extricate our generation and country from the horrors that involve them, and secure peace broad as our country, enduring as its history, and beneficent as right and justice and love. The organized war power of the rebellion is on the eve of overthrow. It belongs to us to govern the territory we have conquered, and the question of reconstruction presses itself upon our attention; and our legislation in this behalf will, though it comprise no specific provisions on the subject, determine whether guerrilla war shall harass communities for long years, or be suppressed in a brief lime by punishments administered through courts and law, to marauders for the crimes they may commit under the name of partisan warfare. At the close of an international war, the wronged but victorious party may justly make two claims: indemnity for the past, and security for the future; indemnity for the past in money or in territory; security for the future by new treaties, the establishment of new boundaries, or the cession of military power and the territory upon which it dwells. Indemnity for the past we cannot hope to obtain. When we shall have punished the conspirators who involved the country in this sanguinary war, and pardoned the dupes and victims who have arrayed themselves or been forced to do battle under their flag, we shall but have repossessed our ancient territory, reestablished the boundaries of our country, restored to our flag and Constitution their supremacy over territory which was ours, but which the insurgents meant to dismember and possess. The other demand we may and must successfully make. Security for the future is accessible to us, and we must demand it; and to obtain it with amplest guarantees requires the adoption of no new idea, the making of no experiment, the entering upon no sea of political speculation. Ours would have b
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