The Wheeling daily register. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1864-1878, 1868-06-05
The arknn.n- Question.

The Arkansns Question.
1t is a significant circumstance that
neither tho "Convention" nor the Con
stitution" received majority Of the
registered vote in Arkansas. We give
the figures as found in the official re-
ports:
Registered Vote. Vote For Majority
"CnrvantiEn" GG S3I I7S3l 5,5SJ
Constitution. ..74,7si 1913 $3.50
To force form of government framed
at the desire of and approved alone by
minority upon helpless majority is
an outrage, and we say 30 with per-
feet knowldgo of the Reconstruction
acts as they stood at the time of these
elections. By those acts bare majority
of votes cast was held sufficient either
to call n convention or rLtify a constl-
tuition, so that if but three men had
voted on either question, two for and
one against, the convention might have
been called in Arkansas and the Consti-
tuition ratified just as fully as they
are held to be now. But for all
that we declare that it would be an
outrage for the Senate to bayonet
this minority government upon ma
jority, and an outrage intensi-
fed By the nature of this government
and the character of those who are, if
it be put in operation, to administer it.
Both are bad. The United States Sen
ators, 60 nomine, have both been &C
cused in the public prints of disgrace
full, and even criminal, acts, and neither
of them, so far as known, have denied
the Justice of those charges preferred
against them. One of them, r. T. Nc
Donald, ,Shas very discreditable record
(Which may be read at length in pro-
ceedings of the Thirty-ninth Congress,
in the Globe, vol. 4, page 3352) in con-
nection with certain swindling opera
tions at Fort Gibson ia the public
stores.
As for the other putative Senator, B.
+. Rice, it will be remembered that we
published, some days since, letter,
bearing date December %, 1859, and ad-
dressed to a Mr. Haggard, OF Kentucky,
in which, being asked by that client to
account for some trust moneys, he
writes, 81 got on a spree and gambled
off over S50O0." As for the Legislature
which the passage of this Arkansas bill
would put into power, it is sufficient to
say that if turned loose upon the peo-
pie they would set the whole State TO
throat-cutting from one end to the 9TH
er. In the very wantonness of in
suit it is proposed by these wor-
thies that the cOnvicts in the Ar
kansas Penitentiary be clad in the uni
form of the confederate army as a
prison garb, and, as further evidence
of the temper of the body, "no person
in the State of Arkansas, without hav-
ing previously taken the oath prescrib-
ed for electors in the Consultation of the
State, shall engage in any of the lines of
business hereinafter enumerated, viz /:
practice law, practice medicine, preach
the Gospel, teach school, act as steam
boat captain, as pilot, as engineer, rs
mate, edit or publish paper, run fer
ry-boat, keep a toll-bridge, keep n sa-
| loon or restaurant, keep bill
| lard saloon, act as auctioneer,
as mail contractor, do no mer-
camille business, shall not carry arms,
shall not keep : stallion" any infrac-
tion of this section being declared fell
ony, and punishable "by imprisonment
in the penitentiary not less than two
nor more than ten years." OF the bO-
gus constitution we have heretofore
spoken, how it gerrymaaders the State,
so as to give its entire control over in
to the hands of the ignorant negroes
and their allies, how it cOmpels the
poor white man to send his children to
the same school SIS the little negroes,
how it makes it impossible
for any man in Ohio and Mich
igan who voted against negro suf-
frage in his own State, to become citi-
zen of Arkansas, and how it makes any
amendment dependent on the will of
the Legislature alone, and prevents any
popular vote thereon for four years at
the very least. Such a Constitution,
such Legislature, such Senatorial
representation, the work of an ignor-
ant, duped minority, cannot restore
peace to. Arkansas. The tendency is
directly and powerfully to tho exact
opposite, and should the Senate pass
the pending bill it will only be to in
tensity every evil it is declared by its
advocates meant to cure.-Uorld.