Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1867-03-01
The SheTElasa Bill.

| Instead of giving any views of our owl
on the ''Sherman bill" we beg leave t.
commend to our readers the following anal
ysis OF it, from the Richmond Enquirer an(
to endorse the wisdom of the advice will
which the article closes The Suprem,
Court of the United States alone can res
cue the South from the fatal grasp in which
fanaticism is strangling her. We have faitl
still in that hitherto pure and exalted tri
bunal. It has more than once proved
g breakwater against the waves of popu
lar fury in party times, and it may ye
again entitle itself to the love and graft
tude of the American people:
1st The declaration that the Southern State.
have no legal governments and that such gov
ernments as exist here, shall be permitted merely
during pleasure, and only as provisional, and shall
be abolished modified, controlled or superseded
in the discretion Of Congress.
I'd Said States are at once placed under mili a.
ryrUle, their governments subOrdinated tOmartia
law, and superseded or contr 3led in the discre-
ton OF commanders Of departments, military com
missions authorized for the trial of such persons
as the commanders may choose to arrest aud all
interference of the State authority for the pro
lection Of citizens, declared null and void
Sd. During the permitted continuance Of the
present state ORGANIZATIONS, no person SlalI be
eligible to any Office under them, who comes un-
der the prescriptions of the constitutional amend
ment That is to say, no one who had ever held
an office State or Federal which required him to
take an oath to support the Constitution of the
United States, and afterwards took he Southern
side in the late war; either by active participation
or by giving aid and comfort
4th. Further, during the permitted continuance
of the present State organizations, the elective
franchise is controlled and modified, that all
qualifications for suffrage abolished except
twenty-one years for age, one year for residence,
and male for sex while all those are prescribed
as above stated, from holding office.
So much for the condition of the States,
under their provisional governments. The
following is the way of escape into per-
manent establishment
9Th. If any State shall form Constitution
through Convention elected by suffrage and
under the restrictions above provided,-and if said
Constitution by like vote be ratified, and shall
make said suffrage the permanent law of the
State, and if sa Constitution after submission
Legislature elected under said Constitution, shall
ratify the Constitutional amendment, then said
State shall be declared entitled to representation
in Congress, and the military rule shall cease
therein.
Such is the scheme. Diabolus could not have
contrived one more utterly unwise, unjustifa-
BILE, inhuman and tyrannical 1t is useless to ar
que against such unbridled passion as alone could
have suggested and adopted it. He who spits
against the wind, spits in his own face The fun
damental proposition of the whole, is that which
denies the existence and integrity of our State or
CARNATIONS. Our defence lies in traversing this
position. Our only mode of making this defence
is by an appeal to the Courts. This it is
our duty to make. must be made up
and we suppose it may be speedily done
uuder the 81 of the above recited points,
on the question of eligibility to office.
1t will be contended by the hungerers and thrs-
ters that the prescription will displace those LA
BILE to it, who are now in office. An order for
ejectment, or an application to prohibit it, will
get the question before the courts. If it be held
that our State governments are valid, and accOr-
ding to the Constitution, then all tie attempts to
alter suffrage, and to dictate qualifications for
Site Office, will be pronounced void. We must
bring to judicial test also the right of Congress to
pass martial law, and to subordinate the civil to
the military in these States in time of profound
peace publicly proclaimed.
This is all that we can do;-but this it is our du-
ty to do. and the Legislature should make suitable
provision. We must be calm and patient, but we
owe it to ourselves, and to children and we
owe it to the OF Constitutional liberty, to
exhaust every civil resource to which ap-
peal, against the enormous I'M ustice cOntrived
against us. If the Supreme Court shall decide
unpropitiously lift shall rule that a Southern
citizen has no rights which Congress is under any
obligation to respectful will indeed haze
heard the knell of Southern hope and American
liberty.