The western Democrat. [volume] (Charlotte, N.C.) 1852-1870, 1867-07-30
EXPLANATION.

Section l. Reafirms that there are no legal
State Governments in the ten rebel States.
2. Empowers the District Commanders dis
tinctly to suspend or remove from Office, when
ever they deem it necessary, any officer holding
any civil or military Office, under any power,
derived from any so-caled State, or any NUM-
cipal or other division thereof He shall have
power, upon such removal, to fill the vacancy
by the detail of some competent officer or sol
dier of the army, or by the appointment of some
other person. These powers subject to re-
vision by the General commanding the armies
of the United States.
g. The General of the armies of the United
States shall be invested with all the powers of
suspension, removal, appointment, and detail
granted in the preceding section to District
Commanders.
4. All acts of the officers of the army already
done in removing officers in the said districts,
as now provided for in section 2, is hereby con-
frmed; aud it shall be the duty of the Com
manders Of Districts to remove from office all
persons who are disloyal to the Government of
| the United States, or who use their official in
| fuence in any manner to hinder the due ad-
ninistraton of these acts.
5. The Boards of Registration shall have su-
preme power to decide on the qualifications for
registration. They may refuse registration, or
strike name from the LIST after it has been
registered, required only to enter the grounds
of such refusal, or such striking from the book
upon the registration lists.
6. Further defines the section in the supple
mentary act Of March, as regards those who are
disfranchised. 1t reafirms the disability as it
stands in the Constitutional Amendment, and
then says: 'The words executive and judicial
Offices in any State, in said oath, shall be con-
strued to include AL civil officers created by law
for the administration of any general law of
State, or for the administration Of justice"
This will still leave room for doubt. The status
of notary publics, municipal officers, and of law
yers, is not yet clearly defined, but the District
Commanders now have plenary authority in the
matter, and orders, We presume, will be issued
by them prior to the opening of registration,
which will be framed 20 meet every individual
case likely to arise.
7. The time for the completion of registra-
tion is extended to October l, 1867. No per-
son shall be entitled to register or vote because
of Executive pardon or amnesty.
8. Authorizes the Commander, when he shall
deem it needful, "to remove any member of
Board of Registration, and to appoint another in
his stead, and to fill any vacancy in such Boards"
This section to US seems altogether unnecessary;
the General being invested with supreme power
in his District, certainly may be supposed to
exercise this lesser right of removing his own
appointees when he may deem it necessary.
g. Requires that all members of Boards of
Registration, and all persons thereafter elected
or appointed to Office in said Military Districts
under any so called State or municipal authority,
or by detail or appointment Of the District Com
mander, shall be required to take and subscribe
the oath of Office prescribed by law for officers
of the United States" This we take to be the
''ron clad" This oath has to be taken, as above
stated, by all persons thereafter elected or ap-
pointed to Office" but has no retrospective force
or application. Section second empowers the
Commanding General to make removals and fill
vacancies, but to do so or not i, optional with
him; and cat is required of those now 10 office.
10. "That no District Commander or mem
Der of the Board of Registration, or any of the
officers or appointees acting under them, shall
be bound in his action by any opinion Of any
civil officer of the United States" This if We
understand it correctly, means that no opinion
Of the Attorney General shall be binding upon
the Commanding Generals, or upon any officers
acting under them. There can be little doubt
that the phrase in a like manner is meant to in
clude the President also; can be inferred
likewise from other parts OF the Bill, where
supervisory power is given alone to the General
of the armies of the United States, and the
genious, but not decisive; for the President is
not merely civil officer of the Government
He is, by the Constitution, the Commander-in-
Chief Of the Army of the United States, and
Congress cannot, without subverting the entire
structure of the Government, take from the
President his right to supervise the action of
all military officers. This 10th Section, how
ever, may mean yet something more than this
If we understand it right, it likewise means that
no Court of the United States (for Judges are
civil officers shall have any right to interfere
in the execution of the Reconstruction Acts of
Congress. This is somewhat at variance With
the opiuiou expressed recently at Raleigh, by
Chief Justice Chase, who recognized no such
power in Congress.
Section 11th is of general character and
unnecessary. 1t provides "that all the provi-
sions of this act and the acts to which this is
supplementary, shall be construed literally to
the end that all the ntents thereof may be fully
and perfectly carried out"
Here then. we have in detail the provisions
of this Third Reconstruction Act, fastened upon
US BY the imprudence of the President, and also,
we, 10 a measure think, by the collisions which
from time to time have arisen in some of the
States, in the course of the execution of these
acts, between the civil and the military author-
ties We are glad to be able to say, that there
have been none such in the Second Military
District, and We therefore affirm that these
additional restrictions have been superinduced
through no fault of ours. The skirts OF the
people of South and North Carolina, are clear
in the matter, as far as We know. Indeed the
testimony of the Commander of District No
has affirmed this again and again, both In bis
speeches and letters.