ucting a war against the people
of the North and West.

If, on the other hand, the representatives from the West and North
should deem it wiser to accept the condition, and await an opportunity
to appeal to the country, how degrading and humiliating their condition!
They might for a time endure it; but finally the people of the North
would rise in their might, and renew the war with spirit and power, and
prosecute it until the entire Rebel element of the country should be
exterminated. The success of Mr. Johnson in the elections is then to be
followed by a usurpation and civil war. It means this, or it means
nothing. The incidents of the usurpation would be, first, that the old
Slave States would secure thirty Representatives in Congress and thirty
electoral votes, or an eighth of the government, to which they have no
title whatever unless the negroes should be enfranchised, of which there
would be then no probability; and, secondly, that two white men in the
South would possess the political power of three white men in the North.
The results of the usurpation would be strife and civil war in the
North, and, finally, the overthrow of the usurpers by force, to be
followed, possibly, by an exterminating war against the Rebel population
of the South.

Already has one of Mr. Johnson's agents announced the usurpation in
substance, and tendered to the country a defence in advance of the
commission of the crime. The defence is simple and logical. Congress
refuses to receive the members from ten States. Those States have the
same immediate right of representation as the other States. Congress is,
therefore, a revolutionary body. Any proceeding which secures the right
of all the States to be represented immediately is a constitutional
proceeding. This is intelligible. Alexander H. Stephens is the author of
this cardinal doctrine of the Presidential party. On the other hand,
Congress maintains that enemies vanquished in war, though formerly
citizens and equals, cannot dictate the terms of adjustment; nor even
enjoy the privileges of a constitution which they have violated and
sought to destroy, without a compliance with those terms which the loyal
people may deem essential to the public safety.

The issue is well defined. Shall the Union be restored by usurpation,
with its attendant political inequality and personal injustice to loyal
people, and consequent civil war, or by first securing essential
guaranties for the future pe