The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1868-06-26
.,-,,cst Against She Admission Of the
Arkansas Representatives.


:, .hc House of Representatives on Mon
80 Mr.. Brooks, on behalf Of the Demo-
@ .,;c members, offered the following pro-
Co. CO.. which was ordered to be printed in the
% s.;sl journal Of Congressional debates:
The recognized presence of three persons
che floor of this House from the State OF
% Kansas, sent here by military force, act
~, under brigadier general Of the army,
~, I've nevertheless claiming,to be members of
pa %, congress, and to share with US, the
u" '"",rssentatives from free States, in the i'm
zion Of taxes and customs and other
a,s uron our people, makes it our impera-
~" dn,v in this, the first case, to remon-
.,,te most solomnly, and to protest as So
;,mnly, against this perilous and destruc-
.;rs innovation upon the principles and
,.c,ices of our hitherto constitutional self
t,rrrnment. The so-called reconstruction
,s which created the military govern
. ~ in Arkansas, and like governments in
,bcr southern States, to share with us in
Va legislative power Of the northern and
,r..tern free people, we have every reason
y, believe, have been held to be unconstitu-
lanai BY the Supreme Court of the United
safes, the public declaration Of which fact
,,as avoided only by the extraordinary and
,,rapce device of this Congress in snatch
inc jurisdiction from the court in the Nc
3Tlic case when such public decision was
.lort 10 be made. OF the three great
l,ranches of the Government it seems, then,
,bat after the Executive vetoed these acts as
unconstitutional, the Judiciary adjudicated
them to be so, while o Congress--the crea-
lion Of but twenty-seyen of the thirty
seven States Of the Union--override these
egunl and coordinate branches of that Co.
,ernmcnt, first, by voting down the ve:oes
next, by multiplying the judgment of the
court. In an era of profound peace, when
not m armed man rises against the Govern
nent from the Potomac to the Rio Grande,
there, in ten States, our American historical
ray of creating the organic law has been
utterly subverted by the bayonet. Ever
since the Declaration Of Independence, with
scarcely an exception, and even amid
the battles Of the revolution, conven-
tons have been convoked through and
constitutions created by the electors Of the
States, the only authorized repositories Of
the sovereign power of every State, with
on, exterior dictation, as under the existing
Federal Constitution, the hardest and harsh
ct st-onth required from 1875 to the
peaec of 1888 was an abjuration oath of al
ie-iance to George the Third; while some
Of the now so-called bayonet-made consti-
utiOns from the South propose absurd and
cruel tests-absurd, as in Arkansas, where
is interviewer in the organic law mere
party test between the Radical reconstruc-
tionsts and the Democratic Conservatives,
such as would exclude from voting, if liv-
ns there, the thousands and tens of thou
sands and hundreds of thousands of Demo
Gratis in the free States (article eight, sec
ton y ; or cruel, as in Alabama, where no
white man can vote who will not forever
iorswear his own race and color, and per-
iure himself by swearing, in defiance of
the Inv of God, that the negro is his equal,
and forever to be his equal, at the ballot
box, in the jurybox, with the cartouch-
box, in the school, in the college, in house
and home, and by the tireside; in
short, in every way, everywhere. (Arti-
Gle I, section A. Now in these and
the other southern States, in the
midst Of war, President Lincoln, in his pro-
clamation December s, 1868, offered am
nesty and pardon to rebels then in arms if
they would lay down their arms and take
an oath of fidelity while now not Union
man in Arkansas or Alabama can vote I'M
less, in the first place, he swears allegiance
to the majesty Of this Congress, and, in the
next, swears off his Americanism and Afri-
canizes himself Hitherto constitutions
with ne have been the outgrowth of popular
life, springing from the exuberance of our
enterprise and energy in the settlement OF
the forests or prairies Of our country; but
here before US now we have nine constitu-
tons, with one, if not three, more yet to
come from Texas, which have all been i'm
posed upon the people by five military ga
traps, or pentarchs, in manner never be-
fore known under our law, but borrowed, ut
best from imperial Roman colonization, or
from the worst precedents of the French
Revolution. France is then recorded to
have had five constitutions in three
years, so frequently made and so fire.
uuently changed that they were IRON
ically classed by the French people
with the periodical literature OF the day:
Louisiana, colony Of that France, has had
four constitutions in four years, and o con-
stitutiou there has now become periodical
literature, as in France in the agonies and
throes of the great revolution. Laws, mere
statute laws, which can never be created by
constitutions, are appended, more or less, to
all these constitutions and these bayonet-
created, branch governments, with no
Executive, no Senate, no House OF Repre-
sentatiyes, no judiciary, have ordained
irrepealable, irreversible laws IN the very
organism of the State, such as cannot thus
be created by the Executive, the Senate,
and the House of Representatives OF ieglti-
mate governments, when acting IN unison,
and all combined. All this has been done
without regard to preceding constitutions or
presidents, or to the common law OF the
States, or the law Of nations. The mill
tary, which under legitimate institutions
can only be used in times Of peace to con-
serve or preserve the State, have here been
used 70 destroy States. The General OF the
ARMY, who represents the sword, and only
the sword, of the Republic, has been exaltea
by acts of Congress above the constitutional
Colamander-in- Chief Of the army and navy,
in order to execute those military DEGREES,
and as the surer way to root out every YES
tige Of constitutional law or liberty. Inc
same General of the army, in order to pro-
long and perpetuate this military DONNA
ton North and West, as well as South, hos
been selected in party convention ct Chi
cago to head the electoral vote for the Presl-
dency in ten of our States, which are us
much under his feet as Turkey is under the
Sultan or Poland under the Car of Rus
sia. But az If only to add insult to the
injury of this military outrage upon the
popular government in these ten States,
either by act of Congress or by these Com