The New Orleans crescent. [volume] (New Orleans, La.) 1866-1869, 1868-08-15
FORM OF REcAErAT1oN.

It is principle of law that, with reference
to the form of expressing required deelara-
ton, the largest liberty shall be allowed
which is consistent with intelligibility and
reasonable brevity. The present State Con-
stitution does not prescribe the precise words
to be used in making the recantation required
from certain citizens by Article SO before
they can vote. Any phraseology which
should intelligibly express the declaration
which, under this article, must be subscribed,
fled in the Office of the secretary of state,
and published in the State paper, would be in
satisfactory conformity with the terms of the
Constitution. Many re cantations have already
been made without reference to any inhexible
form. Nevertheless, the Legislature has seen
proper to pass an act providing a form to be
used in such cases, and simply as a matter of
convenience it will doubtless be advisable for
all to adopt it who may be called on by
political and patriotic duty to adj their
names TO the list of recanters. And this
list need not be a very large one. BY the
Constitution none are required to recant who
are prepared to declare on oath that, before
the LIST of January, 1868, they favored COM
pliance with the reconstruction acts
Of Congress and aided the efforts Of
loyal men to restore Louisiana to her position
in the Union. Now there is in law no middle
ground between compliance and non-com-
pliance, between obedience and disobedience,
between resistance and non-resistance And
who in this State have refused to comply
with the reconstruction acts Who in this
State have resisted the reconstruction acts +?
If there be any such, they are, assuredly, not
to be found among our conservative citizens,
not among that class elegantly and classically
denominated "Tebels in scalawag aud
carpet-bag literature, whose behavior in re-
lation to the reconstruction acts was marked
by compliance, an obedience, non-resist-
ance, as remarkable as those acts were to
them distasteful and abhorrent 1t is true
that the theory of that legislation has been in
this State notably contravened-but only by
those Radicals who have favored the con-
tinuance of military despotism when, accord
ing to this theory, the State was civilly re-
constructed, and the military subordinate to
the civil authority. And who are the
"loyal men" who have co-operated in
efforts to restore Louisiana to her po-
sition in the Union2 In law every
citizen is presumed TO be loyal until the
contrary is judicially established. All our
conservative citizens are therefore, LOYAL, for
none of them rest under Judicial decree of
disloyalty. And it is safe to assume that all
of them have aided, as they have earnestly de-
sired, to restore the State to her position in
the Union. Nor is the oath in question, or
the recantation before mentioned, required of
any but those who held office, civil or mill
tary, for one year or more under the Confed-
crate States, or registered themselves as enc
mics, or acted as leaders of guerrilla bands
during the war, or Sin the advocacy of trea-
son, wrote or published newspaper articles, or
preached sermons during the late rebellion, or
voted for and signed an ordinance of secession
ir any State" We do not know of anybody in
this State who could, under this provision, be
excluded from suffrage on the score of having
advocated " treason" The treason must be
established judicially established = before
the advocacy of If can DO made ground of
penal disability.
According to the foregoing conclusions,
perfectly sound, we feel assured, in the
opinion of every constitutional lawyer, the
number Of our citizens who may not consti-
tutionally vote without making the recanta-
ton or taking the oath referred to, must be
extremely small.
But, in abundant caution, it would be well
for all who have doubts as to whether their
have been such as to exempt |
them from one or the other, or BOTH of those
requirements, to be ready if their sense of |
duty prompts them, to fulfill these require |
nents at the earliest convenience. And |
hence we agree with the suggestion of one
Of our contemporaries that "the State Cen
raj Committee should have large number
If blank recantations printed, so that they may
'e readily had, free of cost, by those who
would use them, and be filed with the secre-
airy Of state and published in time to be
egistered. There is no time to be lost with
egard to the filing of recantations by persons
esiding in distant parts of the State with
Thcm they may be a necessary condition of
citing.