The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1868-02-26

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The withdr drawai of ,ns Ascent or New
4 Jersey % the Fourteenth Amepd
nient OF the United States Constffu
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The following is the Joint resolution
/ which has been adopted by the Legislature
|, of New Jersey: .qo7s
i Joint Resolution Withdrawing tile Consent OF
i this State to the Proposed amendment 'o1
4 = the Constitution of the United States
] entitled article Fourteen, and Resembling
4 the Joint Resolution approved September
II, Anno Donl;ni Eiig gfteet Hnnd drsd and
\ GSiny-Str, aohereby II aoas Resolved that
4 said Proposed amendment scGs Ratified
Il by the Legislature Of this State ''a''''&
The Legislature of the State of New
Jersey, having seriously and deliberately
! considered the present situation: of the
H United States, do declare and make kaoaon,
4 That the basis of all government, is the
i consent Of hegoverned; and all constitu-
tionsF are contracts. between the parties
bound thereby that until any proposition
4 to alter the fundamental law to which all
4 the States have consented has been rati-
4 fed by such number of the States as by
the Federal Constitution makes it binding
upon all, any one that has assented is at
/ liberty to withdraw that assent, and it be-
comes its duty to do so when, upon ma
ture consideration, such withdrawal seems
to be necessary to the safety and happiness
of all. Prudence dictates that a consent
once given should not be recalled for light
and transient causes; but the right is q
natural right, the exercise of which is ac-
companied with no justice to any of the
parties it has, therefore, been universally
recognized as inhering in every party, and
has ever been left unimpaired by any posi-
tive regulation. z = a'j 4. go ,'-34
The said proposed amendment not hav-
ing yet received the assent of the three
fourths of the States which is necessary
to make it valid, the natural and constitu-
tional right Of this State to withdraw its
assent is undeniable. 'e-- - s-.>* =
| With these impressions, and with q
solemn appeal to the Searcher of all
Hearts for the purity of our intentions, and
under the conviction that the origin and
objects of said proposed amendment were
unseemly and unjust, and that the neces-
sary result Of its adoption must be the dis
turbance Of the harmony if not the de-
struction of our system Of sell. government,
and that it is our duty to ourselves and
our sister States to expose the same, do
further declare ,1t.. ...r-.t
That, it being necessary, by the Consti-
tuition, that every amendment to the same
should be proposed by two-thirds of both
Houses Of Congress, the authors of the
said proposition, for the purpose of Sc.
curing the assent of the requisite majority,
determined to and did exclude from the
said two Houses at least seventy represen-
tatives from ten States of the Union upon
the pretence that there were no such
States in the Union; but finding that two
thirds of the remainder of said Houses
could not be brought to assent to the said
propositions they deliberately formed and
carried out the design Of mutilating the
integrity of the United States Senate );
and without any pretext or justification
other than the possession Of the power,
without the right, and inpalpable violation
of the Constitution, elected member of
their own body representing his State,
and thus practically denied to New Jersey
its equal suffrage in the Senate, and there
by nominally securing the vote of two
thirds of the said Houses.
The object of dismembering the highest
representative assembly in the nation, and
humiliating State of the Union faithful
at all times to all its obligations, and the
object Of said amendment were one: to
place new and unheard-of powers in the
hands Of a faction, that it might absorb to
itself all executive, judicial, and legisla-
tive power necessary to secure to itself
immunity for the unconstitutional acts it
had already committed, and those it has
since inflicted on too patient people.
The subsequent usurpations of these
once national assemblies in passing pre-
tended laws for the establishment in ten
States of martial law, which is nothing
but the will of the military commander,
and therefore inconsistent with the very
nature of law, for the purpose Of reducing
to slavery men of their own race in those
States, or, compelling them, contrary to
their own convictions, to exercise the
elective franchise in obedience to the
dictation of faction in those assem-
| blies the attempt to commit to one
man arbitrary and uncomfortable power,
which they have found necessary to
exercise to force the people of those
States into compliance with their will;
the authority given to the Secretary of
War to use the name of the President
to countermand the Presidents orders,
and to certify military orders to be
ssby the direction of the President"
when they are notoriously known to be
contrary to the Presidents direction, thus
keeping up the forms of the Constitution
to which the people are accustomed, but
practically deposing the President from
his Office of commander-in-c chief, and sup
pressing one of the great departments of
the Government, that Of the executive
the attempt to withdraw from the supreme
judicial tribunal of the nation the juris-
diction to examine and decide upon the
conformity Of their pretended laws to the
Constitution, which was the chief function
of that august tribunal as organized by
the fathers of the Republic all are but
amplifed explanations of the power they
hoped to acquire by the adoptionof the
said amendment.
To conceal from the people the immense
alterations of the fundamental law they
intended to accomplish by the said amend
ment they gilded the same with PROPOSE
tions Of justice drawn from the State Con-
stitutions but like all the essays of un-