The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1863-01-20
The Portland Daily Press has the largest
regular circulation Of any daily paper in
the city.
.The President and the Constitution


Here is sample:
No new State shall be formed erected within the
Jurisdiction of any other State nor any State be
formed by the junction of two or more States OF
parts of States without the consent of the Leglsa
lures of the States concerned, well as OF the Noh
gress.-tConstituton.
new State has been formed by act OF Con
gress, within the jurisdiction OF Virginia, WIN
out the consent of the Legislature OF tne Sta'e
concerned, and President Lincoln has signed the
bill.-l Argus.
The very point is here assured that is yet
in debate, and which requires to be proved.
We saw the "new State" has been formed NTH
the consent of the Legislature OF the State
concerned. Rebel Virginia is not to be recog-
nized as a State for the purpose contemplated
in the Constitution The only Legislature of
Va, to which Congress can give ear, or that
should be for momentrecognized,is the Leg
islature that meets at Wheeling, and not the
rebel Legislature that meets at the capital OF
the Confederate government. When the Leg
islature at Richmond consented to ignore the
Constitution OF the U. s., and the members
took an oath to observe and support the Con-
stitution OF the so-called Confederate Govern
ment-a government at war with the Govern
ment of the United States,-from that moment
they forfeited all right to be consulted, and all
right to claim partnership to any act of dyis-
ion or transfer contemplated in the ignored
Constitution.
If no other legislature-no other State gov
ernment--had arisen within the limits of Va,
acknowledging allegiance to the Constitution
of the United States, from which consent to
division could be obtained, then we admit that
Congress would have no constitutional author
ity TO dismember the State. But we also con-
tend that the majority OF State have no right
to carry such State out of the Union; and,
therefore, after the ordinance of secession had
passed at Richmond, when the loyal people of
Western Va, commencing de nouo, called
convention of the people, formed Consti-
tuition, elected officers and organized the State
Government of Y .,they were to be recognized
as the State, and the voice of their Legislature
was to be regarded as the voice of the State
the only voice to which Congress should or
could listen. The action of Congress, there
FORE in creating a new State with the consent
of the loyal Legislature of Va.,-and disloyal
legislature shouldh have no voice in the matter
is perfectly constitutional, and President Lin
coin has violated no obligation or oath in ap-
proving that act
There may be other questions growing out
of this action, presenting some novel features.
The question, what is the political status of
the remaining portion of old Virginia, is one
of these. The Legislature, as we understand
it, has not given its voice in favor of making
t,co States, but il has consented to strike off
from their State that portion which remains
disloyal and rebellious. Whether the sloughed
off portion of old Virginia is to be treated as
a rebel State, or whether the State of Virgin
ia becomes the new State, and the remaining
portion becomes simply an unorganized terri
tory, is a question for lawyers to settle. We
suppose, under the Constitution, the State of
Michigan would be authorized to concede to
the general government her upper peninsula
to be held as territory. Wesuppose the State
of Maine could do the same thing by that
portion of the State lying east of the Penob-
scot; or il could, with the consent of New
Hampshire, allow the counties of York and
Oxford to be transferred to that State. The
otdlt Ol slTgiHid. ny the Nbuctht VI hci ivy "a
Legislature, having restricted her limits to the
loyal portion of her former territory, may ii
not be argued that she intends the remaining
disloyal portion to be treated as unorganized
territory, and 70 be governed as such territory
is, by the federal government? Without
adopting Mr.. Summers theory that State by
rebellion becomes feto de se-commits sui
cide-and thus ceases u, be State, we can see
how that portion OF Virginia lying outside of
the new State, has ceased to have State rights,
not by becoming .feto de Sc, but by the con-
stitutionai act of a Legislature authorized TO
speak for the State, and the only tribunal that
VAS entitled TO be heard in the matter. What
view statesmen and lawyers may take of the
matter we do not know, but the question is
one the answer to which is not TO be assumed
without debate or doubt.
To avoid all such questions as that suggest
ed, we would not have organized new State.
We would, rather, have held the new govern
ment in western Virginia as the State, and the
only rightful State government; and as rebel
lion should be quelled in other portions of the
old commonwealth and they should be con-
quered back to their allegiance to the federal
government, we would have recognized the
right of the Wheeling government to extend
its jurisdiction over them, and the authority of
the old rebel organization, whose mouth-piece
is at Richmond, should nevermore be allowed
voice in the government. The Virginia
senators should in the future be accredited
from the Government now located at Wheel
ing, and nevermore from that at present locat-
ed at Richmond
We give one more of the Argus specifca-
tions against the President:
The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall
not be suspended, unless when, in OF rebellion
or invasion, the public safety may require it.-lCon
stituoD.
This does not apply to the authority confer red
upon the President IL applies solely TO Con-
gress Still the President has assumed the au-
thority to suspend the privilege of the writ, and
that too, when the public safety did not require
it.-[Argus.
Pure assumption on the part of the Argus.
The Constitution does not, by any rule of Ian
guage or Of logic, restrict the right to suspend
the privilege OF the habeas corpus to Congress,
the Argus, and politicians and lawyers of its
stamp, and an occasional one of a different
stamp, to the contrary Notwithstanding. The
democratic authorities are nearly all the 9TH
er way. jefferson recognized no such doe
trine; jackson practically ignored it, and the