The New era. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1865-1871, 1866-08-30


states and people in armed Instruction
against them both. It cannot escape
! observation that the power thus eXerted
| 20 exclude certain States from representa-
'ion Is made to rest wholly in the will
| ana discretion of the CONGRESS- that
asserts it. Ii is not made to depend
upon any specified conditions or circum
stances, nor to be subject to any rules or
regulations whatever. The light assert
ed and exercised is absolute, without
qualification or restriction, not confined
to States i'll rebellion, nor to States that
have rebelled; it is the right of any
Congress in formal possession of legis-
latlve authority to exclude any State or
States. and any portion of the people
thereof, at any time, from representation
at its own discretion and until they shall
perform such acts and comply with such
conditions as it may dictate. Obviously,
the reasons for such exclusion, being
wholly within the discretion of Congress,
may change rs Congress itself shall
change. One Congress may exclude a
State from all share in the government
for one reason; and, that reason re-
moved, the next Congress may exclude
it for another. One State may be eX-
Guided on one ground to-day, and an
other may be excluded on the opposite
ground tomorrow. Northern ascen-
dancy may exclude Southern States
from one Congress; the ascendancy of
Western or of Southern interests, or of
both combined, may exclude the North
ern or the Eastern States from the next.
improbable as such usurpations may
seem, the establishment of the principle
now asserted and acted upon by Con-
gress will render them by no means i'm
possible. The character, indeed, the
very existence of Congressman the Union
is thus made dependent solely and en-
tirely upon the party and sectional ext
gencles or tOrbearanees Of the hour.
We need not stop to show that such
action not only finds no warrant in the
constitution, but It is at war with every
principle ct our government, and with
the very existence of free institutions.
is, indeed, the identical practice which
has rendered fruitIess all attempisfither
to to establish and maintain free govern
ments in Mexico and the States OF South
America. Party necessities assert them
selves as superior to the fundamental
law, which is set aside in reck less ohedi-
ence to their behests. Stability, whether
in the exercise OF power. i'll the adj
mnstFatien OF government, or in the
IJoS fiit- VI titN5 OIt0iiito lif,'0-
sible; and the conflicts Of party, which,
under constitutional governments are
the conditions and means OF political
progress, are merged in the conflicts Ct
arms, to which they directly and inevi-
tstbly tend.
It was against this peril so conspicuous
and SO fatal to all free governments that
our constitution was intended especially
to provide. Not only the stability but
but the Very existence Of the govern.
nlent is made by its provisions to depend
upon The right and the fact Of repre-
sentation. The Congress upon which is
conferred all the legislative power Of
the national government, consists of
two branches, the Senate and the House
OF Representatives, whose joint coll-
currence or assent is essential to the va
lidity of any law. OF these the House
of Representatives, says the consti-
tuition (article l, section 2ll, "shall be
composed of members chosen every
second year by the people of the several
States" Not only is the right of repre-
sentation thus recognized as possessed
by all the States and by every State,
without restriction, qualification OR con-
dition Of any kind, but the duty of
choosing representatives isimposed upon
the people of each and every State alike,
without distinction or the authority to
make distinctions among them, for any
reason or upon any grounds whatever.
And in the Senate SO careful is the con-
slitution to secure to every State this
right OF representation it is expressly
provided that ono State shall, without
its consent, be deprived of its equal
suffrage" in that body, even by an
amendment OF the constitution itself
Wien, therefore, any State is excluded
from such representation, not only is
right of the State denied, but the const-
tutional integrity of the Senate is inn
paired, and the validity OF the govern
ment itself is brought in question. But
Congress at the present moment thus
excludes from representation, in both
branches of Congress, ten States of the
Union, denying them all share in the
enactment OF laws by which they are to
be governed, and all participation in
the election Of the rulers 10y which those
laws are to be enforced. IN other words,
a Congress in which only twenty-six
States are represented, asserts the right
to govern, absolutely and in its own dis
cietion, all the thirty-siX States which
cOnpt,Sa the TTuiOn-tO MAX g their Ia VS.