Des Arc weekly citizen., 1868-08-25

exercise tine inalienable right to test the validity of this constitution, with all it's provisions, or of resoiting to the established modes of abrogating or reforming it. The first section of the very constitution which prcscribes the oath declares that.-"All political power is inherent in the people government is instituted for the pro- tection, security and benefit of the peo- pie, and they have the right to alter or reform the same whenever the public may require It." And the Declaration of Independence declares it to be an inalienable right of the people to alter or abolish their government, and institute, whenever the public good may require it, new form of govern ment. So thst if all the people of the state were to be guilty of the folly of swearing that they would never abolish or reform the present. constitution, the oath would not be binding on them. For men can neither grant away, nor swear away their inalicnable rights |; and the framers of the oath were not such consumate fools as to intend it to have that effect.
 Whether take this oath or not will not attempt, by any illegal means, to deprive the black man of any civil or political right or privilege secured to him by the present constitution, so long as it remains in force, nor will any law abiding man. When he goes to the polls to vote, no man will drive him away by force. When he is called to the jury box to serve as juror, no man will drag him from it by violence. If five of the colored men who arc now standing at my back, listening quietly and politely to what I am saying, had been placed upon tho supreme bench of the state, to fill their pockets out of the public treasury, Should have gone before them, as I have appeared before the judges who now occupy the bench, and respectfully addressed them as, "Your Honors.' Perhaps Governor Clayton, in selecting ten circuit judges for the state, might have given more general satisfaction in the appoint ments, if he had chosen them from the coIorcd population, instead of selecting ten white radical politicians to reward them for partisan work.
 But when the people of the state shall be no longer deprived of their just political rights by force and fraud, and shall come to abolish or reform the present constitution, whether they will continue to the colored men all the civil and political right and privileges granted to them by the present con- stitution, depends very much upon their conduct in the meantime. Ifthey permit themselves to be marched to the polls by designing men, in com panics, like fleeks of sheep, and to be used as mere voting machincs-if they allow themselves to be made to do the dishonest work of voting repeatedly at the same election--as they have heretofore recently done, they will prove themselves unfit and unworthy to be intrustcd with the elective fran chise, and l, for one, shall be in favor of dcpriving them of it. But if in the coming presidential election they go to the polls separately like the white men do, and vote some one way and some another, thereby showing that they are capable of making choice be- tween candidates, and like honest men vote but once, they may furnish some evidence oftheir fitness to be intrusted l with the elective franchise.
 But to return to the oath under dis cussion. To take this oath. is but, in effect, to take an oath to support the existing constitution, and no approba- ton of the policy or framework of the constitution is implied nor does the oath operate as a prohibition upon the person who assumes it to test the valid- ity of the constitution before the pro- per tribunals; nor is the oath of pcrpc- tual obligation, so as to prevent the exercise of the right of advocating, or resorting to, any of the usual modes of abrogating or reforming the constitu- tiOn. These are well established ele- mentary principles of American con stitution law, familiar to every lawyer.
 Suppose you can take the oath, but refuse. You deprive yourself of the franchise secured to the elector by the constitution, and yet you are under the same obligation to submit to the con stitution and abide by its provisions as the man who takes the oath. Congress has declaredit valid constitution, and we can not do otherwise than regard it as de facto constitution at least; and all the officers of the state, from the highest to the lowest, have so treated it, and yielded up their offices to the men who have been elected or appoin- ted under it to fill their places. The radicals, and most of the colored men, will take the oath. If the conservative people refuse to take it, the presiden- tial election in this state will go by de- fault for the Grant and Colfax electors aud they will be counted by the pre- sent house of representatives. All the vacancies which have occurred in the legislature, which is to reassemble in November, will be filled by radicals and your grand and petit jurors will be composed exclusively of negroes and radicals, as we'll as all of the public