The Charleston daily news. [volume] (Charleston, S.C.) 1865-1873, 1867-07-16

be issued by them prior to the opening of re-
gistration, which will be framed to meet every
'individual case likely to arise.
7. The time for the completion of registra-
i,ion is extended to October l, 1867. No person
shall be entitled to register or vote because Of
Executive pardon or amnesty.
g. Authorizes the Commander, when he shall
deem it needful, 'to remove any member Of
Board ofRegistration, of 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 remov-
ing his own appointees when he may deem it
necessary.
9. Requires that all members of Boards of
Registration, and all persons thereafter enter
ed or appointed to Office in said Military Dis
tricts under any so-called State or municipal
authority, or by detail or appointment of the
District Commander, 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 "iron-clad." This oath has
to be taken, as above stated, by all persons
thereafter entered or appointed to Office" but
has no retrospective force or application. Sec
tion second empowers the Commanding General
to make removals and fill vacancies, but to do
80 or not is optional with him; and no oath is
required of those now in Office.
10. "That no District Commander or member
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 like manner is meant
to include the President also; as 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 President is not named This is, perhaps,
ingenious, 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, however, 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 execu-
tion. of the Reconstruction Acts of Congress.
This is somewhat at variance with the opinion
expressed recently at Raleigh, by Chief Justice
CHASE, who recognized no such power in Con-
gress.
Section 11th is of a general character and un-
necessary. 1t provides Z" that ali the provi-
sions of this act and the acts to which this is
supplementary, shall be construed literally to
the end that all the intents thereof may be full
ly and perfectly carried out"
ueTo Iutu, We nave III uctdil lhC piofbSioho
of this Third Reconstruction Act, fastened upon
US by the imprudence Of the President,
and also, we, in 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 authorities. We are glad to
be able to say, that there have been none such
in the Second Military District, and we there
fore affirmed that these additional restrictions
have been superinduced through no fault of
ours. The skirts of the people Of South and
North Carolina, ore clear in the matter, as far
as we know. Indeed the testimony of the
Commander of District No. 2 has affirmed this
again and again. both in his speeches and
letters.