Baton Rouge tri-weekly gazette & comet. [volume] (Baton Rouge, La.) 1865-18??, 1867-05-30
Attorney General Stanbery's "0piniOn."

come TO light. What 1t will amount
to, when coming to be construed &C
cording to the arbiter dictum of the
military authorities and Registrars,
| remains to be seen
It seems to BIZ settled rule with
public officials from the President
| down, that to render an opinion on
any mooted point, must require a
spread-eagle space of from five to
| twenty columns. The Attorney Gen
eral has faithfully adhered to this
rule in the document under consid-
Grafton, which takes up some five or
six columns in each of our New Or
leans exchanges, thus showing him
self an apt graduate of the verbose
and circumlocutory school.
Not having the space to publish
| the document in full, we are com
PEELED to give our readers an outline
only of its main points and argu-
ments which we copy from the New
Orleans Bulletin of Tuesday, to-
gether with certain comments thereon
of the editor of that journal:
/. The Registrars must admit any one
to register, who offers to take the oath pre-
scribed by act of Congress, and they can
not be required by the Registrars TO take
| any other oath.
2. The responsibility of deciding for
himself whether he belongs to the classes
| permitted to vote or are prohibited from
voting, is thus thrown upon the person
registering. He must risk the pains of
| perjury for any incorrect construction of
| the oath of Congress or Of his own rights
under it.
The Attorney General aids the applicant
| for registry by saying that the law pre-
cudes from the rig hit 10 register all officers.
| large and small, coming in any sense
within the description of executive or Judi
clal officers, who have at any time during
their lives held Any one of these offices;
also all members of State Legislature or
Convention and all officers of the United
States who have taken an oath to support
the Government thereof
The Attorney is moreover of opinion
that some direct overt act, done with the
| intent to further the rebellion is necessary
to bring the party within the purview and
meaning of this law.
This throws upon the applicant the de-
termination OF the question whether a vol
unteer soldier who bore arms in the late
war has given aid or comfort within the
meaning of Congress.
The class of those who are not excluded
from the right of registry by the act of
Congress is defined with more precision.
Militia officers are not disqualified. "Such
officers as usually pass under the descrip-
ton municipal do not come within the
provisions of the act, such as officers of
cities, towns, villages, and subordinate and
municipal divisions, whether their func-
tons are executive or judicial, or. as is
sometimes the case, where the same officers
act in both capacitiesn
of offices created under the de fucto gov
err ment of the Confederacy, the Attorney
says:
II am accordingly of opinion that hold
ing simply judicial office, or other execu-
tive office, or public employments. as are
purely civil in character, such as county
offices municipal Offices, and all others eff
like ma ture, which were not created for
the purpose of more etfectually carrying
on hostilites, and which did not involve
the performance of duties expressly in fur
therance Of the rebellion, do not come
within the meaning of this part of the
oath, fixing on the incumbent the gilt Of
engaging in the rebel1ion -
Then there come q great doubt and res
erVatlon as to large list of subordinate
State officehoders. The Attorney says
Tin addition to the class Of officers who
clearly come within the terms of the act
as Judicial and executive officers of the
State, and to those classes which compre-
bend military and municipal officers, who
clearly are not within the terms Of the act,
there remains vast body of officers hose
status is, in some way, to be defined; these
are known in popular language by such
terms of description as county, township,
precinct officers
He reserves for further consideration the
question whether all Of them, or, if not all,
what class of these officers come within
the disqualification.
As summary: The opinion of the
Attorney General does not relieve the diff.
ticulties of the situation. Perhaps it even
adds certain priviges Of perjury which do
not exist under the present regulations.
Now an applicant for registry is examined,
and passed or rejected. Ii he goes to reg
istry, it is the act of the officers who per
nit him, and he is not liable to prosecu-
ton except for willful Justification of the
facts. Under the Attorneys opinion one
who demands registry takes all the risk
that some other Attorney General, or Con-
gress itself, may impose construction on
the law which makes an ndictable felony
an act deemed legal by the person regis
| teriDg.
We repeat, however, that the opinion of
| the Attorney is not law, and possesses not
even the force of construction until adopted
| by the proper authorities. We may OK
| poet something definite from military
order which will announce such repeal or
modification of the present regulations a
may expect an execution of the law. AS
| we are to expect an extension Of re gistry
until Septembe next, and as we may hope
| prompt action by the Executive, it cannot
be many days before the military con
struction of the opinion and the law will
be embodied in an order, and our citizens