Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1867-12-21
The Giving Over of Ten States TO
Negro Kule.

Among the manifold outrages, thick as
autumn leaves, which the last six years
has brought to light, none is greater. or
strikes deadlier blow at free government,
than the claim set up by Congress in the
so-called reconstruction laws, in relation
to the right of voting in the Southern |
States.
Congress derives all its powers from the !
Constitution, and not power granted to
the Executive, Judicial or law-making
power, but was originally vested i'm the
States, who ceded them, in order to form a
more perfect Union. The Constitution
and the Union are both the creatures of the
States. They breathed the breath of life
into each, and without their full and free
assent, neither could have had an exist
enee. The powers thus granted were
clearly defined-none were given, except
such as were clearly necessary to
the existence of the Union, and in the
well grounded fear that others, not granted
might be taken by Implication, as belong
ing to the General Government, by sweep
ing clause, the States placed in the Consti-
tuition the words: "AU po,oers not delegated
to the United States by the Constitution, not
prohibited by it to the States, are reserved re-
spectively to the States and to the people"
No where. in the length or the breadth
of that Constitution, by special grant or
even by Implication, can the right be even
tortured into giving to Congress the power
to make rulers out of negroes, and to deny
the right to whites who, they and their
| n
first the States made the Union and gave
to Congress the power to made laws, not to
oppress individual States, but alone for
the protection and interest of the people of
the whole Republic, protecting the liberties
and happiness OF all and granting special
powers to none. .sElz'7s Efst1sfs
The act of Congress proposing to regu-
late voting in the South, is utterly void,
the body that passed it having no more
right to say who are and who are not voters
in the States of the South, than they have
to say that Negroes, and Negroes alone
shall do the voting in Ohio. AS an ex-
change says, it /" is matter for State de-
Termination exclusively. 1t is so by the
letter OF the law and SO by prescription.
Local govern ment is older than the Union
by full two centuries. Suffrage is its very
cornerstone. The Constitution gives no
power to Congress to take it away from the
States. 1t has been wrested from the South
by usurpation. Public opinion condemns
the act; and public opinion is higher in
authority and moral power than an un-
constitutional law of Congress. We want
no reference Of open insurrection to a iu-
dlcial authority to determine whether it is
lawful or unlawful so, when military
despotism is enforced in any part of the
Union, we find in it the exercise of unlaw-
ful authority which makes every agent of
the system trespasser, and liable, by pri-
vate action, to parties injured thereby"
Submitted to as the people of Ireland
submit to English domination-the people
of Hungary and Poland to Russian and
Austrian tyranny, the military leaders in
the South have ordered elections, in which
the most ignorant blacks form a majority
of the voters, and have called Convention,
In which the lowest class of negroes sit as
members, to form State Constitutions, over
throwing those which formerly exist
ed, and thus giving up ten States OF the
Union to Negro domination. Where the
late slaves are masters, the late masters
deprived of all rights of treemen, are the
political slaves of their late chattels.
Thus holding the States of Georgia, Mis-
sissippi, Arkansas North and South Caro-
lima, Texas, Florida, Louisiana aud Vir-
ginia-States of the Union as much as Ohio
or Massachusetts,, and entitled to the same
rights of self-government-as conquered
provinces, Congress is re.constructing them
on Radical principles, so as to give them
rights, with which they never parted, and
which cannot be taken from them, upon
the condition, scarce attempted to be con-
cealed, that the Whites give up the politi-
cal power of the State to their late slaves
and remain, as now, having no political
rights that Negro and Radical is bound
to respect. !
The Negro rule of the States, in which
White men are thus defrauded of their
rights of freemen, is to be used in the next
Presidential election, to aid in retaining
the power of the Government in the hands
of party that has used but to abuse it.
These outrages, If submitted to, will be
the conniving at crime, and it can be cited
as precedent for the right OF Congress to
other, and if possible greater
outrages in the future. 1t was once happi- |
ly said by an American statesman that it is
far better to resist aggression at the door
sill than at the hearth stone; but the power
to resist it at the Threshold has passed
1t has now to be resisted, if at all, on its
own chosen spot. We cannot believe that
the American people. although they have
been patient and forbearing even to tim
midity, in seeing outrage upon outrage
c ,nsummated, will thus reward crime by al
lowing it to enjoy larger rule of an un-
principled minority over majority of the
States and the people of the American Re
public. ------------------~