Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1868-05-22
rhs Omnibus Reconstruotion Bill.

Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Louisi-
ana was rushed through the House on
the l4th with shameless haste. Stevens
cut of all debate by calling for the pre-
vious question. The correspondent Of
the New York World gives the following
briei but startling exposition ofthis pisee
Of legislative villainy:
The call being sustained, the vote was
taken on Mr.. Stevens amendment TO de.
clare the provisions Of the Georgia con-
stitution, which repudiates private debts
TO date, and all like provisions in the
other reconstructed constitutions, to be
inapplicable to loyal creditors, and the
amendment was adopted-yeas Is, nays
80 fr
The effect Of this amendment will be
to put it in the power Of any creditor in
the South who will swear long enough
and hard enough that he always loved
the old flag and was loyal to the Union,
only he was obliged to seem secession
ist, TO drive a coach and four through the
relief section of the reconstructed con-
stitutions to squeeze the last cent from
his debtor who voted. poor dupe, for the
bogus constitution because it promised
to shield him. Bingham's amendment
that there should be no discrimination
in rights or privileges in the States so
admitted against any class enjoying such
rights by the reconstructed constitution
was then adopted in lieu Of Mr. Stevens
wording, that the Constitution should
never be changed in the article Of suf-
frage by 81 in the affirmative to 46 in
the negative. Stevens voted no, and
called for the yeas and nays, which
he failed to obtain, only sixteen
sustaining the call. The intended effect
of Bingbam's amendment is to neutral
ize the discretionary power over suffrage
the adoption of the fourteenth amend
ment secures to State; but, as an act
of Congress cannot take away what an
amendment confers, Causidicus Bing-
hams measure will not hold water. Mr..
Brooks amendment to make universal
suffrage condition precedent to ad mis-
sion, by which was meant to do away
with the enormous dsfranchisement of
white men enacted by the bogus conven-
tions, was lost without division, and
the bill passed by q two-thirds vote--yeas,
los; nays, 35 A Radical loss of FIVE,
and Democratic gain of three on the vote
of the Arkansas bill. Taken all in all the
passage of this bill is only second in
enormity to the original enactment of the
first reconstruction act. All effort to
procure information as the nature of
these bogus constitutions, the votes upon
them in detail, or the effect of their work.
ing in the restoration of the South, were
peremptorily repressed, and yet what
little has come to light opens a most ap-
palling vista of fraud, corruption and
tillainy in the management of this
whole business South. Thus, in South
Carolina, Alabama, and Arkansas, the
Legislature can keep up standing armies
in time of peace, and in North and South
Carolina and Arkansas children, ire.
spective of color, are to be compelled to
go to the public schools unless privately
educated by their parents. In the Missis-
sippi Convention, now in the l7th day
of its session, at cost of quarter of a
million already, there are but five white
native Mississippians out of the whole
one hundred delegates. In South Caro-
lima there are sixty-fve negroes in the
House and nine in the Senate, and these
ignorant creatures, who lumber the
whites or joint ballot, only pay $lS7 25
taxes, though their majority gives them
full power of taxing all the property of
the State. Fifty-seven Of these negroes
pay no tax at all, and of the seventy white
members thirty six pay no taxes either,
and the balance of them only 1868 so, so
that the whole South Carolina Legislature
only pays 1896 65 of the taxes it is to i'm
pose. One of the Arkansas Senators, So
called, it has been discovered, is from New
York, and the other Pennsylvania,
aud neither has been in Arkansas long
enough to be fit for the position he fraud
ulently seeks to fill. The facts, as lately
developed in the case of Florida, show
that two bogus constitutions were
framed in that State, one of them
under guard of soldiers furnished
by General Meade, and the claims OF
the respective adherents of these republi.
can forms of government are so evenly
balanced that no man in the House,
neither Democrat or Radical, not even
Thad Stevens himself, could determine
which was which. This uncertainty ex-
tends even to the vote on ratification,
since some vote for one and some the
other, and the confusion enveloping the
whole affair, has led to the omission of
Florida from the omnibus bill. But
what of all this fraud If the rushing
through of the bill to-day can bring in
ten carpet bag Senators to vote for con-
victinn