The Sun.
London, England, 1867-12-18 00:00:00

THE RECONSTRUCTION LAWS.

Being sincerely convinced that these views are
correct, I would be unfaithful to my duty if I did
not recommend the repeal of those acts of Congress
which place ten of the Southern States under the
domination of military masters. If cairn reflection
should satisfy a majority of your honourable bodies
that the acts referred to are not only a violation of
the national faith, but in direct conflict with the
constitution, I dare not permit myself to doubt that
you will immediately strike them from the statute
book. To demonstrate the unconstitutional cha-
racter of those acts I need do no more than refer to
their general provisions. It must be seen at once
that they are not authorised. To dictate what
alterations shall be made in the constitutions of the
several States, to control the elections of State legis-
lators and State officers, members of Congres, and
the electors of President and Vice-President, by
arbitrarily declaring who shall vote and who shall
be exeluded from that privilege ; to dissolve state
legislatures, or prevent them from assembling ; to
dismiss judges and other civil functionaries of state,
and appoint others without regard to state law ; to
organise and operate all political machinery of states;
to regulate the whole, administration of their do-
mestic and local affairs, according to the mere will
of strange and irresponsible agents sent among them
for that purpose—these are powers not granted to
the Federal Government or to any one of its
branches. Not being granted we violate our trust
by assembling them as palpably as as we would
by acting in face of positive interdict, for the
Constitution forbids us to do whatever it does not
affirmatively authorise, either by express words or
by clear implication. If the authority we desire to
use does not come to us through the constitution
we can exercise it only by usurpation, and usurpa-
tion is the most dangerous of all political crimes
By that crime enemies of free government in all-
ages have worked out their designg against public
liberty and private right. It leads directly and im-
mediately to the establishment of ab,oluse rule, for
undelegated power is always unlimited and unre-
strained. The acts of Congress in question are not
only objectionablefortheir assumption of ungranted
power, but many of their provisions are in conflict
with the direct prohibition of the constitution. The
constitution commands that a Republican form of
nn pGovernment
rson:i‘shall btieegpuriayreaan
fe dl
fteo,
itya,teosr;
pro-
at
perty without the due process of law ; arrested
without a judicial warrant, or punished without a
rair treat dll
lege of the habeas corpus shall not be denied in time
of peace, and that no bill of attainder shall be passed
even against a single individual. Yet the system of
of measures established by those acts of Congress
does totally subvert and destroy the form as well as
the substance of Republican Government in the ten
States to which they apply. It binds them hand
and foot in absolute slavery, and subjects them to
a strange and hostile power more unlimited and
more likely to be abused than any other now known
among civilised men. It tramples down all those
rights in which the essence of liberty consists, and
which a free Government is always most careful
to protect. It denies the writ of habeas corpus and
trial by jury. Personal freedom, property and life,
if assailed by passion, prejudice, or rapacity of the
ruler, have no security whatever. It has the effect
of a bill of attainder, or a bill of pains and penal-
ties, not upon a few individuals, but upon whole
masses, including millions who inhabit the subjected
States, and even their unborn children. These
wrongs being expressly forbidden cannot be consti-
tutionally inflicted upon any portion of our people,
no matter how they may have come within our
jurisdiction, and no matter whether they live in
States, territories, or districts. I have no desire to
save from proper and just consequences of their
great crime those who engaged in rebellion against
the Government ; but as a mode of punishment the
measures under consideration are the most unreason-
able that could be invented. Many of those people
are perfectly innocent ; many kept their fidelity to
the Uuion untainted to the last, many were incap-
able of any legal offences; a large portion even of
persons able to bear arms were forced into rebellion
against their will, and of those who are guilty with
their own consent degrees of guilt are as various as
the shades of their character and temper. But these
acts of Congress confound them altogether in one
common doom. Indiscriminate vengeance upon
classes, sects, and parties, or upon whole communi-
ties, for offences committed by a portion of them
against Governments to which they owed obedience,
was commmon in the barbarous ages of the world ;
but Christianity and civilisation have made such
progress that recourse to a punishment so cruel and
unjust would meet with the condemnation of all un-
prejudiced andright-minded men. Puritive justiceof
this age, and especially of this country, does not con-
sist iu stripping whole States of their liberties, and
reducing all their people, without distinction, to
a condition of slavery. It deals separately with each
individual, confines itself to forms of law, and vin-
dicates its own purity by an impartial examination
of every case before a competent judicial tribunal.
If this does not satisfy all our desires with regard
to Southern rebels let us console ourselves by re-
flecting that a free Constitution, triumphant in war
and unbroken in peace, is worth far more to us and
our children than the gratification of any present
feeling. lam aware it is assumed that this system
of government for the Southern States is not to be
perpetual. It is true this military government is to
be only provisional, but it is through this temporary
evil that a greater evil is to be made perpetual. If
the guarantees of the Constitution can be broken
provisionally to serve a temporary purpose, and in
a part only of the country, we can destroy them
everywhere and for all time. arbitrary measures
often change, but they generally change for the
worse. It is the course of despotism that it has no
halting place. Intermitted exercise of its power
brings no sense of security to its subjects, for they
can never know what more they will be called upon
to endure when its red right hand is armed to plague
them again. Nor is it possible to conjecture how
or where power, unrestrained by law, may seek its
next victims. States that are still free may be en-
slaved at any moment, for, if the Constitution does
not protect all, it protects none.