Daily union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1865-1866, 1866-06-08
WEST VIRGINIA AND TEsr.oATHs.

lHS latS idtueHteu y uSllCe OAIltOS, u tulS
city, whose death was a great loss to the
conservative element in the Supreme Court
Of the United States, during a session Of the
Circuit Court in this city, the year before
his death, peremptorily directed an attorney
who had, in plea or declaration, described
a sutton as a citizen Of West Virginia, TO
strike out the prefix "Wcsb"-that the
Court could recognize no such State as
West Virginia. When the question as
TO the legality Of such State shall
be submitted TO the crucible of rigid
Judicial scrutiny, and the solution be given
"unmixed with baser matter" We have lit
tie doubt that this decision Of Justice CAT
RON will be upheld. While, however, radi
ical madness prevails, and taints with its
pestiferous presence the consultation room of
the highest court of the land, the bastard
organization claiming the rank and rights Of
State Of the American Union in thirty or
forty OF the western counties of the State Of
Virginia will be able to maintain some show
of Legitimacy If this people have any fl-
ture prosperity in prospect, there is to be
a day Of publication and excision of
many fungous excrecences which the I'M
healthful condition of the body polite
has permitted TO sprout, and almost smother
every vestige of its genuine vitality, and
West Virginia with its train Of test-oaths
and acknowledgements, and political perse-
cutions will be one of the first of the I'M
sound limbs TO fall before the memorable axe
Of truth and justice.
This reference TO this bogus concern which
is cutting SO many fantastic capers before
the face of the Constitution and the Amer
lean people, is called forth by the following
extract from the Philadelphia Press:
The people Of West Virginia. nearly all South
eTn born, by tremendous majority, indeed we'll
nigh upon reclamation, decided to distranchise
the rebels and rebel sympathiZers and this, not
withstanding the COpperheads loudly declared
that the Radicals, who originated and adyOca-
ted the DISTINGUISHING amendment, were all for
negro suffrage.
The writer Of this paragraph knows per-
fectly well that the people of the region
called West Virginia had little or nothing
TO do with the decision Of this question. By
a tyrannous proceeding consummated in a
state of war, and under the dictation Of bay
onets, this illegal government was erected on
the soil and within the jurisdiction of the
State Of Virginia, and every man, except
those who were parties to it, living within
It's limits, was, in the very act of its organ
ization, excluded from political privileges ;
and its whole management has been under
the control ola close corporation of camp
followers from the Federal army, and few
ambitious citizens of Virginia who discov-
cred in this scheme of a now State a
mode of getting offices which they had
failed to OBTAIN in the old commonwealth.
The vote over which this Radical organ
hourishes its trumpet, was taken under a
system Of Acknowledgement of the real peo-
pie, and was hideous mOckery of amending
the Constitution so as TO perpetuate their
disfranchisement, and retain power in the
hands of the usurping oligarchy which set
it on foot. So far from being an implied or
express declaration in favor of negro suf-
frage, or a popular approval of the policy
of prescription Of any body of white voters,
it is nothing more than bald, unrelieved,
outrageous exercise of despotic power-an
unmitigated usurpation attempting to clothe
itself in the vesture of legality, Whatever
voting was done, was, doubtless, after the
style of the French military officer deputized
rs election commissioner, who invited voters
to a free election, but significantly added that
any man found voting against a certain
candidate would be shot at sunset. The
great mass as we have said, were estopped
10y a test-oath, and many who did partici-
pate were induced by the fear of persecution
and outlawry which the enginery of despo-
tisms in the name Of liberty, is so potent to
innict, and in the present vItlated state of
the public mind in the Northern States is
so plausible to justify.
We hope to see the day when West Vir-
ginia and her career as a State shall be men
toned only as an incident in the history of
the unfortunate civil war, and there to be
exhibited as an instanceof the folly TO which
men in periods of violent excitement may
be persuaded, and as an example of FEEDER
al interference with the soil, the rights and,
dignity of a free and equal state TO be Gorev-
er execrated.