The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 12, July 1908 - April, 1909 Page: 122
332 p. : ill. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Texas Historical Association Quarterly.
countries is not wanting in examples to illustrate the dangers of
this experiment. The process for its accomplishment is already
stereotyped. It is simply to fasten the charge of being allied to
the treason of the South on all who stand in the way, fight the
battles of the country over again on paper, and the ostracism of
the doomed from public confidence and favor is expected to follow.
This scheme has a long lease in efficiency in prospect, and when
frequent repetition shall have destroyed its effect, other means
will be resorted to.
This process is objectionable, because it decoys the public mind
from the real questions at issue, and keeps alive an infuriated sen-
timent against a prostrate people. It deters the Christian, the
philanthropist, and the statesman from' extending to them a help-
ing hand. Who, now, in all this broad land, dares to say that all
imaginable degradation and punishment may not be inflicted on
the Southern people? He is branded as a traitor by the new army
of politicians, enlisted since the war, though he had been one of
the heroes who conquered the South-though he had been one of
the patriots whose intellects had directed public events, resulting
in Union victory, in the great struggle.
The scheme, if consummated, will establish a new Union, and
not the Union of the Constitution, which creates a general govern-
ment, with three co-ordinate departments acting in harmony, leav-
ing each State forming it to preserve its own individuality, its own
local policy and peculiar organism, so long as it is in form re-
publican. What was meant by a 'republican form of government'
is easily arrived at by examining the general structure of the Con-
stitutions of the States when they formed the general government.
It can hardly be argued that they expected the general government
to require more perfect models of republicanism than their own;
or to compel them, or others, to adopt a more perfect form of re-
publican government than that contained in their own Constitu-
tions.
It will be found that such a government would absorb in its
administration and under its care and protection an infinity of
local matters, extended over a vast space of country, embracing a
great variety of climate and production, and consequently different
modes and habits of life, and different phases of thought; all
which are incapable of uniformity without the imposition by force
of flagrant injustice and oppression. This system of centraliza-
tion has been often tried, and has always failed in the end.
It was that lesson in history That admonished our forefathers
to preserve State lines and State governments, so that the peculiar
wants, necessities, and interests of each different section might be
best promoted.
The civil rights bill and freedman's bureau bill are parts of
this scheme, which have already been inaugurated. The army of122
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Texas State Historical Association. The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 12, July 1908 - April, 1909, periodical, 1909; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101048/m1/140/: accessed May 4, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.