Pomeroy weekly telegraph. [volume] (Pomeroy, Meigs County, Ohio) 1860-1866, 1865-07-06

ment, the utmostSharmony will prevail among
all the States of the Union happy change
and we pray God that it may be speedy in its
necessary accomplishments.
aeA. Some charitable writer's are laboring
to inculcatc on the popular mind the novel
but erroneous sentiment that it is the prerog-
atve Of the General Government, by virtue
of the Constitution, to regulate the exercise
of the right of suffrage by the people: this
teaching we repeat is a dangerous view Of
the powers of the Government over the rights
of the people, the exercise of which under the
provisions of our Constitution is the highest
prcrogative pertaining to the people: nowhere
in the Constitution is this power delegated to
the General Government, but on the contrary
We find in Art !, Sec. of the Constitution,
it is expressly provided, that The House of
Representatives (U, S. Congress) shall be
composed of members chosen every second
year by the people Of the several States, and
electors in each State shall have the qualifi
cations requisite for electors Of the most nu-
merous branch of the State Legislature" II
is true however that under certain circum-
stances the rights and powers exercised by a
Constitutional Government, in cases of IN
extreme nature may be assimlated to those
Of an individual wherein the interposition Of
the laws cannot for the time being be invoked
to preserve life, he will he justified in resum.
ing his natural rights and in defending him.
self irrespective of law, even to the taking Of
human life. Such most unquestionably was
the late condition of the Government of our
country: her National life, her very existence
as one of the nations of the world, being
placed in imminent peril by unscrupulous trai.
tors, beyond the protection provided by the
Constitution, those welding authority ss its
officers and public servants, whose sworn duty
it was to preserve and defend the Govern
ment of our country, were really in such easel
of extremis, Gut only for the time being
authorized to resort to the exercise Of powel
the most exemplary, even though it trans
cends the provisions contained in that instru
ment '.. '..a. .-
In Rebel districts, therefore, where all su
Neutrality-suspicious. and State-has been sus
pended by rebellion, in our opinion, in its re
construction, it is not only in the power Of tn
Government (whose duty it is to see that tn
States possess Republican form Of Govern
ment, W but that it is her duty so to limit tn
exercise of the use of the elective franchise
80 as to exclude from its exercise all such a
would have destroyed it, from participation il
the exercise of this high privilege, until tn
contemplated reorganization shall have bee
perfected: leaving to the States when restored
to their proper place, the regulation Of thi
important subject
Before the Inauguration of the late rebel
ion, We read ''that the Constitution Of .countr
might be violated in order to its future pre-
serva1on," but o, that time our country menha
not been called upon to say how far extraol
dinary powers may or may not be exercised t
perpetuate great principle. The late REBEL
ion has been school in which the people hav
been very inapt scholars, unless they hav
made progress in these important matters
The policy of rebels was to destroy the Go,
ernment under which we live regardles
of the organic laws, and at the sam
time contended that coercion was Inhibited b
the Constitution they sought to destroy. Is
, not therefore a novel doctrine, that men ma
become great latitudinaIians in their efforts I
destroy, while those who would protect woul
, conserve, like the usurer in the case of tt
, pound of flesh, must be restricted to the ver
r letter of the law? ".Allons," as the Frencl
men say ntA- to the dogs, who would devo,
= the subsistence of the nation: its vitality.