The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1865-12-05
DAILY PRESS,
Tuesday Morning, Dec. 5, 1855.
phe Constitutional Guaranty of Repubh-
can Form of Government.
PORTLAND.


The Boston Daily Advertiser publishes
very able paper from the Hon. Robert Dale
Owen, in which that gentleman, in view of
the early assembling of Congress and the
weighty questions it will be called on to consid-
er, invites the attention of members elect and
of the public to that clause ofthe constitution
guarantying Republican form of Govern
ment, and to practical recommendation,
which will, he thinks, if properly brought for
ward, command two thirds of the votes in eth
er House.
Mr. Owen prefaces his subject by paying a
high compliment to the spirit and intentions
OF President johnson in his recent recon
struction policy, expresses his opinion that it
is seldom unwise to tender the olive branch
even to the unworthy, and that clemency
should first be tried; and adds:
The South, welded to her idols, has not re-
sponded to the magnanimous overtures of the
President. Such l doubt not, will be the
judgment of Congress. Upon that judgment
believe Congress will act; and, if it does, no
impediinent, / feel assured, will be thrown in
it's way by our Chief Magistrate.
Further in eIucidation of his position, Mr..
Owen says:
1t is the people of the whole nation through
their national government, not the people of
any one state through their convention or
their state legislature, who have the right,
and upon whom is imposed the duty, to see
that state governments are, and remain, re-
publican in form. (Art. w., Sec. A. And
the whole people, not the people of single
state, are by the Constitution made the judges
of what is republican form OF ofgovernment.
If a state of the Union were to proclaim a
monarchy, Congress would have the right to
reject her representatives. But republican
form of government may be subverted by in
direction as surely as by proclamation of
monarchy. A State has right, within certain
limits, to decree the qualifications her votes !;
but when any such qualification is pushed be-
yond the point of republicanism, it devolves
upon the national government to enforce the
constitutional guaranty.
A state, ifit see fit, may require a proper
ty qualification; as that a voter shall be tax
payer or householder; but if it push the
principle so far as to require that he shall pos
sess hundred thousand dollars, then large
masses are disfranchised, and the republican
form of government is violated thereby.
A state, ifit see fit, may require literary
qualification, as that voter shall be able to
read the constitution of his country: but if it
push the principle SO far as to require that he
shall understand Sanserit or read Homer in
the original Greek, then large masses are dis
franchised and the republican form of govern
ment is violated thereby.
A state, ifit see fit, may require qualifica-
tion of birth, as that foreigner shall have
been a three-year resident before he is entitled
10 vote; but fit should push this principle so
far as to disfranchise all persons of foreign
birth and their descendants, during lifetime,
then large masses would be excluded, and the
republican form Of government violated there
by.
So also, if a state disfrdachise, because of
race, the .fftieth part of her population, her
action mag uiolate Justice, get fall short Of
acorling a Substantial change in her form Of
gocernanent- (De nininsis non c,rdt ler.)-
But If the number excluded By this QuaiiacG-
cation of race from participation IN self goc-
ern8lent amount to one third or one halt or tioo
thirds of her entire population, then large
masses are dSstrGnchised, and the republican
form Of government Is essentially viotdted
thereby.
Loyalty, at present is scarce in the South,
and it is precisely the most loyal portion of
the people whom it is proposed to disfranchise.
gro population being given in mss, in fa-
vor ofmen who viii go against the repudia-
tion of our debt or the assumption of the reb-
ell debt, not because they have political or fl
nancial knowledge, but because they have sa-
gacious instincts. They know who are their
friends, and will go with their friends.
Interest and duty therefore coincide in this
matter. We are called upon to do justice; and
by so doing we best provide for our own safety.
Congress has now the power in its own hand
to do so, and he would have it use that power.
This is his definite proposition:
If the trainers of the Constitution had an
ticipated such insurrection as we have just
quelIed, do not doubt that, besides giving
Congress the right to determine the times,
places and manner of holding elections for
congressman, they would have given that
body the further right to determine the quail
fications of voters as well for Congressman as
for President. These are national Offices; and
think it would have been eXpedient to vest
in the nation-not in the separate states-the
right to determine how they should be filled.
l am quite sure that, in the present temper Of
the South it is not safe to suffer each state to
determine the qualifications of electors of fed
eraI officers. The qualifications should be uni
form In all the states, and the representatives
of the nation should determine these. &c
I propose therefore, that Congress, before
admitting members Of the late ins,trgeat states,
should take the initiatory step so to amend the
Constitution that the qualifications of voters
for President and Vice-President and for
Representatives in Congress shall be deternsin
ed by Confessional or constitutional author
itu. l think it best to ensure permanent uni
formity in a matter so vital as this, that the
amendment should set forth, specifically, the
qualifications to be required OF the electors in
question, at least in part. 1t should be pro-
yided that race or color shall not be a qualif-
cation, and that the ability to read tho Consti-
tuition shall be.
1t would be well to incorporate in the same
amendment provision that President and
Vice President shall be voted for directly BY
the peopIe The intervention of electoral col
ieges Ia provision virtually annulled by public
opinion) has long been mere dead letter in
cumbrance; and, as such, should be erased
from the Constitution.
As to the literary qualification ability
to read-it has in its favor at this time two
recommendations one temporary and of ex-
pediency, the other of principle and external.
For, first, it is a compromise offered to the
South ON the negro suffrage question, shutting
out for the time being, probably nineteen
twentieths of fthe-African race: and, secondly,
it is the first step in the assertion Of two great
principles-the one, that the accident of race
shall not exclude free citizen from self gov
ernment; and the other, that while monarcbi-
cal Europe commonly selects property as a sniff.
rage qualification, republican America suh-
stitutes for it the test of intelligence
y
Suffrage has, of late years, and especially in
our great cities, gradually come to be not only
cheaDened, but, in measure, dishonored and
degraded. That cannot continue and increase
without endangering cur very form of govern
ment. Anything which tends to elevate suf-
race in the eyes Of those who exercise it, tends
to The perpetuity no less than to the morality
oftiie republic.
some viii object to the amendment propos-
ed, that it Is insufficient for present purposes;
heino a comnrornIse under which we should