The weekly North-Carolina standard. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 186?-1869, 1867-03-13

To the House Of Representatives:
1 have examined the bill ''to provide
for the more efficient government of the
rebel States" with the care and anxiety
which its transcendent Importance Is
calculated to awaken. I am unable to
give it my assent for reasons so grave,
that hope statement of them may
have some influence ON the minds of the
patriotic and enlightened men with
whom the decision must ultimately
rest.
The bill places all the people of the
ten States therein named under the abb
solute domination of military rulers
and the preamble undertakes to give
the reason upon which the measure is
based, and the ground upon which it is
justified. 1t declares that there exists
in those States no legal governments,
and no adequate protection for life or
property, and asserts the necessity of
enforcing peace and good order within
their limits. Is this true as matter of
fact?
tits not denied that the States in
question have each of them an actual
government, with all the powers, exc
cutlve, judicial, and Legislative, which
properly belong to free State. They
are organized like the other States of
the Union, and, like them, they make,
administer, and execute the laws which
concern their domestic affairs. An ex-
listing de facto government, exercising
such functions as these, is itself the law
of the State upon all matters within its
jurisdiction. Topronounce the supreme
law-making power of an established
State illegal, is to say that law itself is
unlawful.
The provisions which these Govern
ments have made for the preservation
of order, the suppression of crime, and
the redress of private injuries, are in
substance and principle the same as
those which prevail in the Northern
States and in other civilized countries.
They certainly have not succeeded in
preventing the commission of all crime.
nor has this been accomplished any.
where in the world. There as we'll as
elsewhere, offenders sometimes escape
for want of vigorous prosecution, and
occasionally, perhaps, by the ineficien-
cy of courts or the prejudice of Jurors.
1t is undoubtedly true that these evils
have been much increased and aeora.
waited, North and South, by the demnor.
alizing influences of civil war. and the
rancorous passions which the contest
has engendered. But that these people
are maintaining local Governments for
themselves, which habitually defeat the
object of all government and render
their own lives and property insecure,
is in itself utterly improbable, and the
syerment Of the bill to that effect is not
supported by any evidence which has
come to my knowledge. All the infor.
4 nation / have on the subject convinces
me that the masses of the Southern
people and those who control their pub.
lie acts, while they entertain diverse
opinions on questions of Federal policy
are completely united in the effort to
Ye.organfze their society on the basis Of
peace, and to restore their mutual pros
perity as rapidly and as completely as
their circumstance will permit.
9 The bill, however, would seem to
show upon its face that the establish
ment of peace and good order is not its
real object. The fifth section declares
fhst the preceding sections shall cease