Resolution of the "Conservative Republicans" in Convention, Des Moines, Iowa, June 28, 1866.

    Source citation

    "Iowa," The American Cyclopedia and Register of Important Events of the Year 1866 (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1873), 408. 

    Author (from)
    "Conservative Republican" Convention
    Recipient (to)
    People of Iowa
    Type
    Miscellaneous
    Date Certainty
    Exact
    Transcriber
    John Osborne, Dickinson College
    Transcription date

    The following text is presented here in complete form, as it originally appeared in print. Spelling and typographical errors have been preserved as in the original.

    We hold that the Constitution of the United States is the palladium of our liberty, and that any departure from its requirements by the legislative, executive or judicial departments of the Government is subversive of the fundamental principles of our republican institutions.
    Repudiating the Radical doctrine of State rights and secession on the one hand, and centralization of Federal authority on the other, as equally dangerous, and believing that no State can secede, and the war having been prosecuted on our part, as expressly declared by Congress itself, to defend and maintain the supremacy of the Constitution, and to preserve the Union inviolate, with all its dignity and equality and the rights of the States unimpaired. The Federal arms having been victorious, we hold that all the States are still in the Union and entitled to equal rights under the Constitution, and that Congress has no power to exclude a State from the Union, to govern it as a Territory, or to deprive it of representation in the councils of the nation, when its Representatives have been elected and qualified in accordance with the Constitution and laws of the land.
    While we fully concede to the Federal Government the power to enforce obedience to the Constitution, and laws enacted in conformity with it, and to punish those who resist its 1egitimate authority in the several States, we believe that the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially of the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions, according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of our political freedom depends.
    We hold that each State has the right to prescribe the qualifications of its electors, and we are opposed to an alterations of the revisions of our State institution on the subject o suffrage.
    We cordially indorse the restoration policy of President Johnson as wise, patriotic, constitutional, and in harmony with the loyal sentiment and purposes of the people in the suppression of the rebelion, with the platform upon which he was elected, with the declared policy of the late President Lincoln, the action of Congress, and the pledges given during the war.
    We regard the action of Congress in refusing to admit loyal Representatives from States recently in rebellion as unwarranted by the Constitution, and calculated to complicate rather than adjust our national troubles.
    The ratification, by the Legislatures of the several States, of the amendment to the Constitution of the United States for the abolition of slavery settles that vexed question and meets our hearty approval.
    We are opposed to any further amendments to the Constitution of the United States until all the States are represented in Congress and have a vote in making the same.

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