Daily Ohio statesman. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1855-1870, 1868-10-20

last publishes the following letter from
General Frank P. Blair to citizen of La
fayette:
sFoRT SANDERS, WYOMING TER'Yl "
,Hano3 aa"August "a, 1SGS. '...
sTo Jas. Ho,oes, Esq, Lafayette, Ind: ''5'
DEAR SIR: have received your letter,
in which You ask me if would endeavor
to have the constitutionality of the recon-
struction acts tested by the Supreme Court
before proceeding to treat them as null and
void. In answer, l say that the vital prin-
ciple of the reconstruction acts has already
been decided to be unconstitutional, null
and void by the Supreme Court, the whole
Bench concurring, in the case of Milligsn
and Bowles, which went up from the State
of Indiana on writ of Habeas Corpus. IS
sin that case it was decided, in the plain
language of the Constitution, that the Gov
ernment could not establish martial law in
time of peace. or try citizen by military
commission, or court-martial. The recon-
struction acts, so-called, stand on martial
law, and nothing else. 1t is the essence of
these acts. They were prepared and put
in execution in time of profound peace, in
defiance OF the unanimous decision of the
Supreme Court, to which 1 have referred,
and they, and all that has been done under
them, are null and void. -"
"a case was made up under these acts
the case of McCardle, OF Mississippi-and
brought before the Supreme Court; and it
is well known that the Court was ready to
declare these acts unconstitutional, when
Congress passed another act to deprive the
Supreme Court of its jurisdiction, and
openly attempted to intimidate the Judges
by threats Of remodeling the Court.
''rhe Supreme Court, in another case
that of Cummings, of Missouri-decided
that the disfranchisement of the white
people of the Southern States by an act of
Congress, was bill of attainder and an e1
post fdct0 law, both of which were forbid
den in express terms by the Constitution.
Even the Radicals admit, in their Chicago
platform, that the States alone have the
right to decide who shall be entitled to
suffrage within the States; and yet Con-
gress has assumed to take the right from
the white people and give it to the negroes
within the Southern States.
''The reconstruction acts violate the Con-
stitution in all these particulars, and it has
been already so decided by the Supreme
Court. The Constitution says the military
shall always be subordinate to the civil au-
thority, but these acts have superseded all
civil authority, and erected military gov
ernments at the South. Do you want a
decision of the Supreme Court to show that
this is unconstitutionalr Are those who
say that the military is subordinate to the
civil authority .revolutionists? Are those
VINO demand the restoration OF Cne Trial Dy
jury, which has been suppressed in the
South by the reconstruction acts, revolu-
tionists? Are those who claim the benefit
of the great writ of right, the habeas cor
pus, which is denied to 100000 OF our
people by the Infamous reconstruction
acts, to be branded as revolutionists?
sShall ebe called revolutionists because
we proclaim, in the very language of the
Constitution, that Congress shall pass no
bill of attainder or e1 post fdcto law? or
shall we be thus branded tor claiming what
the Constitution comedies in express words,
that the States shall regulate suffrage for
themselves? Do we want more decisions
of the Supreme Court on these points? The
truth is that the Radicals are the real revo-
lutionists, and have subverted the funda-
mental principles of our Government and
converted it into mean and malignant
oligarchy, sure to lapse into military
despotism. '--
ITO restore the Government and the
great guarantees of freedom, contained in
the Constitution, and inherited from our
ancestors, is revolution To execute the
will of the people, whom the fragmentary
Rump Congress has put at defiance, is
revolution To carry out the decisions OF
the Supreme Court is revolution This
revolution is at hand. The peoples will,
the Judgment of the court of the highest
jurisdiction, will be enforced against a
usurping Rump Congress. .a....
II am, most respectfully, your obedient
servant, FRANK p. BLAIR"