The tri-weekly standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1866-1868, 1866-05-03

We publish III another column the re
port ofthe committee on reconstruction
proposing certain amendments to tn,
Constitution.
The first amendment proposed is in
tended to secure to all citizens of tho
Uuited States, including the colored
population, the same privileges and i'm
mltnitics, and the same protection under
the law to life, liberty, and property
This is not intended to include the right
of suffrage, but suffrage is left to the
individual States, to be determined as
they may choose.
Members of the House Of Reprcsen-
tatives shall be based on numbers, but
if male negroes are denied the right to
vote they shall not be counted in APP
portioning representatives.
Until the 4th day of July, 1870, all
persons who voluntarily adhered to the
late insurrection, giving it aid and COM
fort, shall be excluded from the right to
vote for members of Congress and for
electors of President and Wee Presi-
dent. This is intended to secure the
control of public affairs to the "unmis-
takably loyal men," By the second
section of the first article of the present
Constitution, it is provided that
The House of Representatives shall be
composed Of members chosen every second
year by the people of the several States. and
The electors in each State shall have the quail
ifications requisite for electors OF the most
numerous branch Of the State Legislature"
It is also provided, in article second,
that leach State shall appoint, in such
manner as the Legislature thereof may
direct, a number of electors" &c, for
President aud : ice President. 1t there
fore follows, if the above amendment
should be adopted, that the electors or
voters for members OF the Legislature
must be the same as those for members
of Congress and President and Vice
President; and none who participated
voluntarily i'll the rebellion can vote for
the latter. This fact seems to have
been overlooked by our contemporaries
of the press.
It is provided that whenever the pro-
posed amendments shall become part of
the Constitution by the ratification of
three-fourths of the States, and any
State lately in instruction shall have
ratified the same and modifi ed its laws
and Constitution accordingly, its Sena-
tors and Representatives, on taking the
required oath, shall be admitted to the
Congress.
1t is also provided that persons be
longing to certain classes shall never be
eligible to any Office under the govern
ment Of the United States. It will be
seen that members of the Confederate
Congress are not among those whom it
is proposed to exclude from office. -
Nearly all of them, however, will be
excluded from voting and holding office
until 1870, on account Of their voluntary
participation in the rebellion.
The following statement by our
ncighbor Of the Sentinel is clearly IN
founded:
The report Of the Committee proceeds |
upon the vicious and inadmissible idea. that |
the States lately in rebellion effected and
made good their ordinances of secession bv |,
their revolt, and that they are consecuentiv |
out of the Union, beyond the pale of the
Constitution, if, indeed, they admit that such |
an instrument is in force at all.'
The most cursory reading of the re-
port will convince any one that our
ncighbor is mistaken. The States are
all treated as States, and provision is
made for " the restoration of the States !
lately IN rebellion, to their full political
rights." There is no admission that the
States actually seeded, OF that they
made good their revolt. In this respect
at least, there is no difference between
the report and the policy of the
President
We shall discuss more fully hereafter
the various features of this report.
Before these proposed amendments
can be submitted to the States thew
must pass both houses of Congress- bv
a two-thirds vote. 1t is more than nro-
bable that the required two-thirds will
be secured,