The Sun.
London, England, 1865-12-06 00:00:00

The Resurrection of South Carolina•

The ratification of the great constitutional amendment
by the reconstructed loyal Legislature of South Carolina is
a feather in the cap of the Palmetto State. It is something
more than reconstruction or restoration in her case. It is
a resurrection. She was dead, but she is alive again ; she
was buried by Sherman's terrible army, but she has risen
from the grave. The contriver, the instigator, and the
pioneer in secession and rebellion for slavery and a South-
ern Confederacy, it is eminently proper that she should
set the example to her hesitating confederates in the good
work of establishing liberty and union for evermore. This
has been done by South Carolina in the ratification of the
great constitutional amendment, which puts it beyond the
power of any State, or any ten or twenty States, hereafter
to re-establish slavery.
It appears, however, that the constitutional hair-splitters
of the South Carolina Legislature required all the argu-
mentative powers of President Johnson and Secretary
Seward to bring them to the work. They were about to
appeal to the President that they had done enough. They
were anxious to be reinstated as a State in full communion.
Their cities, manufactories, mills, &houses, barns, and
thousands of homes burned ; their plantations devastated,
their stocks destroyed, their slaves set free, their banks in-
solvent, their millions of investments in rebel securities
collapsed into worthless paper—all this and much more in
the way of the war's disasters calls for immediate and active
exertions from the whole population and the earliest
possible restoration of the State to established law and
order. But still their Legislature hesitated upon this con-
stitutional amendment. What was the difficulty? The
amendment, second section, reads ;—" Congress shall have
power to enforce this article (abolition of slavery) by ap-
propriate legislation." The difficulty with the South
Carolinians lay in " the apprehension that Congress
might under this second section claim the right to legislate
for the negro after slaviry was abolished."
This was the hitch, confessed by Governor Perry to
the President. But in reply Mr. Seward made it all right
by saying that the objectionable clause "is really restrain-
ing in its effects instead of enlarging the power of Con-
gress." Furthermore, says Governor Perry, to his Legis-
lature, "I am happy to find that the Secretary of State
does not regard these objections as well founded, but con-
siders them querulous and unreasonable.' " What more
could be asked ? The Legislature dismisses its objections,
ratifies the amendment, and asks, Have you and thing more?
The Governor intimates that there is something more still
to bo done touching the nullity of secession and those rebel
debts, and that this business will next be finished we have
no doubt.

Thus the President's requisitions, South Carolina leading
off, will, we dare say, be still fulfilled by all, or nearly all,
the late rebellious States, from Virginia to Texas, by the
first Monday in December, the day of the meeting of Con-
gress. We are satisfied, too, that if those States shall
come' before the two houses with a record declaring seces-
sion a nullity, and the State debts under the rebellion
void, and the constitutional amendment ratified, they will
be speedily admitted. All hail! New Jersey ! All hail !
South Carolina !—lVeto York Herald.