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From Mason Telegraph
July 17, 1866 [[stamp]] THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES OF THE UNITED STATES [[/stamp]]

WHY IT IS DONE.
  It is seldom that a political party adopts any particular measure or line of policy, whatever may be their real motives, without being able to assigning some patriotic reason for their course.  The only sound basis of party is the country's welfare ; one founded on any other avowed principle, would, ordinarily, meet its death at the hands of the people in the very article of its birth.  The masses are honest, and feel interested in politics only so far as they contribute to the security of vested rights and the general welfare of the people.
  Such is the general rule. We have, however, the most extraordinary exception in the present Republican majority in Congress.- Here we have a party, whose political cohesion is destroying the government by inches, and who avow that the object of their measures is to enlarge and perpetuate power in themselves.  Their unscrupulous and wicked leader avowed it boldly in one of his recent speeches in Congress.  For this purpose they are advocating and enforcing a dis-union which half a million of Northern lives have been sacrificed to prevent.  They are trampling the Constitntion under foot, simply because a faithful execution of its mandates would weaken their strength, if not wholly deprive them of power.  The army put down revolution and restored the Union, but these men refuse eleven great States all participation in its rights and blessings and what is still more, insist on imposing on the excluded parties more than their full share of the public burthens.  And all this simply because the admission of Southern members to Congress would create votes against them and their iniquitous plans.  Was ever such a party tolerated in any civilized government before!
  We feel that we have stated the case fairly against the Radical majority in Congress. To say nothing of their confessions, what other possible motive can they have for excluding Southern members from Congress and erecting a military dictatorship over these States for though a majority of the House voted against the territorial amendment of Old Thad Stevens, the passage of the Freedmen's Bureau by both houses is equivalent to the suppression of law in the Southern States. They cannot base their action on the principle that we have sinned and must therefore be punished, for in that case they erect themselves into judges and jurors and usurp the powers of a wholly distinct branch of the government.  Trial and convention are conditions precedent to punishment in every country that professes to be governed by law.  On the other hand, it cannot be that they really consider the Southern people disloyal and dangerous, for they have been conquered in the field, deprived of their arms and military organization, and ,are evidently powerless, so far as forcible resistance to the government and its authorities is concerned. It is out of the question that they should apprehend danger from us in our present condition.  They know we are harmless, but for a selfish purpose of their own, would bran us with suspicion of evil intent.  Southern men, too, who have never yet forfeited their honor or violated a pledge are to be cast out as faithless; and for what? They know us too well to doubt our fidelity, but they have a clean sweep in Congress now, with hardly so much as a voice to be raised in opposition, and notwithstanding they would still be largely in the majority should the Southern members be admitted, they fear the moral power of our representatives, and the utter overthrow that awaits themselves at the hands of an indignant people, so soon as their iniquities shall have been exposed and held up to the public gaze.  There is where the shoe pinches, and well may it pinch. "The wicked flee when no man pursueth, but the righteous are bold as a lion."
  Such is the faction that the people of the North, in an unguarded or phrensied moment, entrusted with the reins of the government.  It is a wicked, selfish and revolutionary band of conspirators, and if power exists anywhere to overthrow them and their villainies, it ought to be done, without regard to the cost. Gen. Jackson would not have tolerated the war of such a cabal against the peace and integrity of his country for twenty-four hours. They are clearly a band of usurpers and traitors, and should be cast out, and the Union saved from their machinations, even though the law of force should be necessary in order to accomplish it.  The right-thinking of every section would applaud the deed and stand by its author.