The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1865-07-28
. l-rHnaRnAr pRoaI,EM.

SAOt ASAASI NesAA 0SAAJt oAAA consequently S1SAb
responsibility rests upon the Government
They must now be cared for as citizens Of the
Republic, and treated precisely asif they had
never been slaves and their skins had always
been white.
But the great problem is, how shall they
come into the possession of those rights to-
which their humanity entities them? What
shall be done for them in their new relationsf
What legislation is necessary to give them the,
full enjoyment Of the privileges and immuni-
ties which the war has wrought out for them
These are the great questions of the day,
and they must be settled, and settled, too, on
the principles Of eternal justice. But little
has yet been done, and the work Is pressing
hard upon the Government. We are not dis
| posed to doubt, for a moment that President
| johnson is the friend of the colored man. Ne
one knows better than he the conditions in
which the war has placed them. The Presi-
dent has always shown disposition to treat
them kindly and to give them their rights SO
far as the Constitution will permit him to do
So. The time will soon come when universal
suffrage must form the basis of the adjustment
~ =
Of these questions. ,.ssg.ea slWad "a II
But the rights of the colored population are
not the only questions to be settled by the
Government There are others which will Sc
Verely tax the powers of our wisest statesmen
and Sablest, constitutional lawyers. The war
has upheaved the very foundations of South
ern society, both social and governmental
War has made sad havoc in social conditions
and State laws and constitutions. Great
changes have been wrought, and the deep.
rough burrows the plough of rebellion has turn
ed up must be leveled and srnoothed. Now
what has the President done towards SMOOTH
ing these rough places? How does he view
the condition Of the States that have been in
rebellion?a lHg0o3A b8gs1 laaimsIg
1t is said he considers, them as never having
been out of the Union. But what do his acts
speak, 1t is an old maxim that actions sneak
louder. than words. Surely his appointment
of provisional Governors shows that he deem
ed it necessary that they should be reformed
And the question naturally arises, whence did
he derive his authority to appoint governors
for the rebellious. States o If they have not
SO far gone out. of the Union as to lose their
former State Rights in it, then the people, the
legal voters Of those States, have the right to
electtheir own Governors without anyinterfer
ence Of executive authority. aFair Play
Washington correspondent of the N. Y. Tri-
duRe, argues these questions with good deal
of logical force. According to his arguments, Z
the President, in his efforts to reorganize
Southern society, has been compelled, blythe
necessity of the case, to overstep the landmarks
prescribed by his conservative friends and en-
emies, and his initial measures will be
found on examination, to be- based on the as
sumption that the States have forfeited their
rights as such under the Constitution, and
need organization just as much as the terrific
ries. This facthas been clearly seen in every
movement made to bring about new organ
izatioh, and this writer says that the aonly
vestiges Of theStates which remain are the
old boundaries" AL the, steps the President
has taken find their precedents in the en-
abling Acts" which the General Government
has adopted from time to time tobreathe po-
litical life into the inhabitants of unorganized
territories in the western wilds. 's.asi.4 'aR
Now the first step taken is to appoint 'sPro-
visional Governors" This is not done by
State authority, but entirely against it, as we
have previously stated; for the Constitutions
require the election of Governors by the peo-
pie. This is q fundamental principle of State
Rights, which the President has IGNORED and
disregarded. And what is more, he has pro-
ceeded to invest his Provisional Governors
with powers far transcending those which the
Constitutional Governors possessed. These
Governors are authorized to appoint judges,
justices, sherifs, &C., in royal style, and they
have the aid Of the army and navy to enforce
obedience to their commands = 80
Again--tlle President assumes that the peo-
pie included within the old State boundaries
have no constitution, no government, no laws,
and therefore he enjoins on the Provisional
Governors to enrol the male white people
twenty-one years old and upward, excepting
such as he decides have forfeited the elective
franchise by treason, and such as refused a test
oath. Then at proper time these voters are
to choose delegates to State conventions, which
are to amend the Constitutions OF the several
States, and "Fair Play" asks, eff to amend,
why not to make? ? If the President NAV de-
eide that a State Constitution is defective in
two or three particulars, and needs amend
ment, why may he not decide that it is utterly
worthless, and must be replaced by new
one?" When such a convention is assembled,
it is difficult to see why it may not amend any
and every clause until an entirely new Consti-
tuition is the result. Fair Play says: ssap
The Convention of 1887 was called for the
purpose of amending the articles of the Con
federation; but, in fact, it made a Constitution
OF Government" and created a Government
wholly different from the old
Now we believe something had to be done to
get these rebellious States on the road to the
Union, and we don't see how the President
could have started the thing without appoint
ing provisional Governors for them, unless he
had waited until the assembling of Congress.
The truth is, in whatever aspects we may
view these questions, it is quite evident they
are surrounded by some difficulties. IF we
say treason was SO rank and the rebels turned
up and overset affairs so generally that there
was nothing left in the rebellious States but
their old boundaries, then we are met by OBJ
ieetions, and many will contend that the reb-
els had no such power. But it is evident from
what the President has already done that he
thinks the rebels have given their State Con-
situations and laws a tremendous shaking; so
much SO that they require some very grave and
serious amendments, if not an entire change
we suppose the power to prescribe the
Terms on which the seeded States shall be adj
,,i''eu lnoo the Union resides in Congress
Dy existing laws, no person who has given
voluntary support to the rebellion can be a
oleinOer Oh congress, or hold any Federal Of
nee ana the question here arises, has the
President constitutional no1var - So, ~