The tri-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1866-1868, 1866-03-31

processes deseribedaby the BILL. These
numerous official agents are made TIC
constitute sort of police, in addition
to the military, and are authorized to
summon a posse co7nitatats, and even to
call to their aid such portion of the
land and naval forces of the United
States, OF of the militia, &C as may be
necessary to the performance OF the
duty with which they are charged"
This extraordinary power is to be
conferred upon agents irresponsible to
the Government and to the people, to
whose number the discretion of the COM
missioners is the only limit, and in
whose hands such authority might be
made terrible engine of wrong, oP-
preston, and fraud. The general statues
regulating the land and naval forces OF
the United States, the militia, and the
execution of the laws, are bel1eyed to
be adequate for every emergency winch
can occur in time of peace. Lit 1t should
prove otherwise, Congress can at any
time amend those laws in such manner
as, while subscribing the public welfare,
not to leopard the rights, interests, and
liberties of the people.
The seventh section provides that a
fee of ten dollars shall be paid to each
commissioner in every case brought be-
fore him, and fee of five dollars to his
deputy, or deputies, =" for each person
he OF they may arrest and take before
anv such commissioner with such
other fees as may be deemed reasonable
by such commissioner" " in general for
performing such other duties as may be
required in the premises" All these
| L Of no
~ of the United States,'' whether there
is a conviction or not, but in case OF
conviction they are to be recoverable
from the defendant. 1t seems to me
that under the influence of such temp
tations bad men might convert any law,
however benefcent, into an instrument
of persecution and fraud.
BY the eighth section of the bill the
United States courts, which sit only in
one place for white citizens, must mi
CRATE, with the marshal and district at
torney, land necessarily with the clerk,
although he is not mentioned,) to any
part Of the district, upon the order of
the President, and there hold court
&C for the purpose of the more speedy
arrest and trial of persons charged with
a violation of this act - and there the
Judge and the officers of the court must
remain, upon the order of the Presi-
dent, &C for the time therein designa-
ted'
The ninth section authorizes the
President, or such person as he may
empower for that purpose, "to employ
such part of the land and naval forces
of the United States, or of the militia,
as shall be necessary to prevent the
violation and enforce the due execution
of this act" This language seems to
imply permanent military force, that
is to be always at hand, and whose only
business is to be the enforcement of this
measure over the vast region where it is
intended to operate.
lido not propose to consider the policy
of this bill. To me the details of the
bill seem fraught with evil. The white
race and the black race of the South
have hitherto lived together under the
relations OF master and slave--capital
owning labor. Now, suddenly, that re-
lation is changed, and, as to ownership,
capital and labor are divorced. They
stand now each master of itself. In this
new relation, one being necessary to the
other, there will be a new adjustment,
which both are deeply interested in
making harmonious. Each has equal
power in settling the terms, and if left
to the laws that regulate capital and
labor, it is confidently believed that
they will satisfactorily work out the
problem. Capital, it is true, has more
but labor is never so ignor-
ests, not to know it's own value, and not
+ - II hot
This bill illustrates this adjustment. 1t
between capital and labor,
and attempts to settle questions of po-
litical economy through the agency of
officials, whose interests it
will be to foment discord between the
two races; for as the breach widens
their employment will continue, and
when it is closed their occupation will
terminate.
In all our history, in all our experience
as people living under Federal and
State law, no such system as that con-
by the details of this bill has
ever before been proposed or adopted.
They establish, for the security of the
colored race, safeguards which go in
tinitely beyond any that the General
has ever provided for the
white race. In fact, the distinction of
race and color is by the bill made to
operate in favor of the colored and
against the white race. They interfere
with the municipal legislation of the
States, with the relations existing ex-
clusively between a State and its citi-
zens, or between inhabitants of the
same State--an absorption and assump-
ton of power by the General Govern
ment which, if acquiesced in, must sap
and destroy our tederative system of
limited powers, and break down the
barriers which preserve the rights of the
States. 1t is another step, or rather
stride, towards Capitalization and the |
of all legislative powers
in the National Government. The ten
dency OF the bill must be to resuscitate
the spirit of the rebellion, and to arrest
the progress of those influences which |
are more closely drawing around the
States the bonds of union and peace.
My lamented predecessor, in his pro-
clamation of the first of January, 1868,
I IL