The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1866-10-13
A Constitutional View of the Question of
Recon ust,ucfion.

1 A Constitutional View of the Question of
Reconstruction.
| A LATE speech by Mat. Carpenter, Esq, of
! Milwaukee, Wisconsin, one of the foremost
lawyers in the West, presents the radical view
of reconstruction in very strong light. He
makes very clear the distinction between the
geographical "State," which no power but
that of successful revolution on the part of its
inhabitants, or conquest by foreign enemies,
can take "out of the Union" and the
ciUH "State," or corporate organization
through which the people administer govern
ment, which was taken out of the Union, or,
in other words, ceased to be in constitutional
relations with the Government of the Union,
by the facts of secession and rebellion. While
the geographical State, therefore, has not
been out of the Union, because the attempted
revolution failed permanently to detach it
from the power and authority of the Union,
the ciUI State, which is the governmental or
ganization or corporation, was both taken out
OF the Union and finally destroyed by the
actions of it's citizens and the results of the
war.
This view is fortified by the decision of
the supreme Court in the prize cases in 1862,
in which it was held that in organizing the
Rebellion, the States engaged in it had acted
as States, so that all their citizens, without
reference to their loyalty or disoyalty, were
Justly held as public enemies, and their
property liable to capture and conflscation.
Passing from this preliminary and funda-
mental point, the demonstration is complete
and overwhelming that the work of reorga-
nizing these lapsed civil States, and restoring
them to the Union is purely Legislative, be-
longing to Congress alone. 1t is so from the
fact that it is necessarily of a ldD-mGking
character. The President is merely an exc
cutive. He cannot make law. The Consti-
tuition, too, in explicit terms, confdes the
work of restoration to Congress. 1t says
that 'the United States shall guarantee to every
State in this Union republican form Of gov
ernment," ETC.; and then it further provides
that Congress shall have power to make all
laws which shall be necessary to carry into
execution all the pO1cerS UeSted IN the Coz
ernment Of the United States. The work
of guaranteeing republican forms of govern
ment to all the States in the Union being
JluS U6SU6U Ill Une OnlCeu OGdUeS, JnlS ldCUer
clause explicitly confers upon Congress the
power to pass whatever laws may be neces-
sary for carrying out that work.
But whatever Congress has the right to do
at all, it has the eTclusire right OF doing.
If it ne elects to perform any duty devolved
upon it by the Constitution, no other depart
ment of the Government can assume to do
the duty tor it. If Congress fails to pass the
needed law, the President cannot supply the
omission. Congress in its sphere is not only
supreme, but erctusiueUso.
1t follows from this that the so-called
Estates" which have been reconstructed
since the war through Executive agency,
have no legal or constitutional basis what
ever, and can have none until their existence
shall have been recognized and legalized by
Congress. And hence, too, it follows that
the Republicans in this contest are really the
constitutional party, following out strictly
both the letter and spirit of the Constitution,
while their opponents are attempting to defy
| both,