Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1868-06-30
The Arkansas Representatives.
PROTEST OF THE DEMOCRATIC MEMBERS OF THE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, AGAINST THEIR
ADMISSION.

protest which Mir. Brooks proposed to 0Ter IN
the House to-day against the admission of the
Representatives of the State of Arkansas
The recognized presence of three persons on
the floor of this House from the State of Ar
kansas, sent here by military force, acting I'M
der brigadier general of the army, but never
theless claiming to be members of this Con-
gress, and to share with US, the Representa-
tives from free States, in the imposition OF
taxes and customs and other laws upon our
people, make it our imperative duty In this.
the first case, to demonstrate most solemnly and
to protest as solemnly against this perllOus and
destructive innovation upon the principles and
practices of our hitherto constitutional self
| government .a
The so-caed reconstruction acts which Gre
ated the military government In Arkansas and
| like governments In other Southern States to
share with us in the legislative power of the
Northern and Western free people, We have
every reason to believe, have been held to be
unconstitutional by the Supreme Court Of the
United States, the public declaration of which
| fact was avoided only by the extraordinary and
strange device Of this Congress. in snatching
jurisdiction from the court in the McArdle case,
when such public decision was about to be
made. e.f aaa vas ,8 aY..a la i
OF the three great branches of the govern
ment it seems, then, that after the Executive
ciary adjudcated them to be so, while a Con-
gress, the creation Of but twenty Of the
thirty seven States of the Union, overrides
these equal and coordinate branches of that
government, first by voting down the Vetoes,
next by multiplying the judgment of the court.
In an era of profound peace, when not an
| armed man rises against the government from
the Potomac to the Rio Grande, there, in ten
States, our American historical way of creating
the organic law has been utterly snbverted by
the bayonet Ever since the Declaration Of
Independenee-wth scarcely an exception
and even amid the battleg of the Revolution,
conventions have been convoked through, and
constitutions created by, the electors Of the
States, the only authorized repositories of the
sovereign power Of every State, without exte-
rior dictation, as under the existing Federal
Constitution,
The hardest and hafshest test-oath required
| from l776 to the peace Of 1888 was an abiura-
ton oath of allegiance to George the Third,
while some of the so-called bayonet made con-
| situations from the South propose absurd and
cruel tasts-absurd, as in Arkansas, where is
interviewer in tbs organic law mere party test
between the Radical reconstsaetionlsts and the
Democratic conservatives, such as @jarld ex-
elude from voting, if living there, the thou
sands and taas Of thousands and hundreds of
thousands OF Democrats IN THE tree States, lar
ticle S, section ~ OF cruel, IS 10 Alabama,
where no white man can vote who viii not for
| ever forswear his own race and color aud per-
| jure himself by swearing, in defiance of the law
| of God, that the negro is his equal, and forey-
er to be his equal, at the ballot box, in the
| jnry-box, with the cartouche box in the school,
| in the college, in house and home and by the
| freside-in short, in every way, everywhere
| (article 7, section
Nog, in these and the other Southern States
| in the midst CT var, President Lincoln, in bis
| proclamation of December S, 1862, offered am
negty and pardon to rebels then 10 arms if lhey
would lay down their arms and take an oath Of
fidelity. while nov not Union man in Arkan-
sas or Alabama can vote unless in the first
| place he swears allegiance to the majesty Of
| this Congress- and In the next sWears OFT bis
Americanisn and Africanizes himself. Hith
erto, constitutions with Us have been the out
growth of popular life, springing from the ex-
| uberance Of our enterprise and energy IN the
| settlement Of the forests or prairies of our
country; but here before rs now are nine con-
| situations, with one it pot iste6 nlNre to come
from Texas, which have ali been Imposed aeoR
the people by five military satraps or PeEtasehs
| in manner never before known to our law,
but borrowed * best from imperial Roman civ
| iization, or from the worst precedents of the
| French revolution.
France is then recorded to have had FIVE cor
stitutions in three years; so frequently made
and so frequently changed that they were IRON
ically classed by the French people with the pc
riodicai literature of the day Louisiana, a
colony Of that France, has had four constitu-
tons in four years, and constitution there has
now become periodical literature, as in France
in the agonies and throes of the great reyolu-
ton Laws mere statute laws, which can new
er be created by constitutions, are appended,
more or less. to all these constitutions and
these bayonet created one branch govern
ments, with no Executive. no Senate, no House
of Representatives, no judiciary, have or
dained irrepealable, rreverslble 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 legiti
mate government, when acting in unison and
all combined
| All this has been done without regard to pre-
| ceding constitutions or presidents, or to the
common law of the States, or the law of ma
tons. The military, which under legitimate
institutions can only be used in time OF peace
| to conserve OR preserve the State, have here
been used to destroy States. The General OF
| the army, who represents the sword, and only
the sword Of the Republic, has been exalted
by acts Of Congress above the constitutional
|
order to execute those military DEGREES, and as
the surer way.to throw out every vestigc left OF
constitutional law or liberty, the same General
of the army, In order to prolong or perpetuate
/ his military domination, North and West, as
we'll as South, has been selected in party con
vention at Chicago 70 bead the electoral vote
| for the Presidency III ten Of orr States, which
are as much under his feet as Turkey is under
the Sultan or Poland under the Gar Of Rus
STA. But, as if only to add insult to the injury
Of this military outrage upon the popular gov
ernnent in these ten States either by act OF
Congress or by these Congress soldier made
State constitutions, at least $50 600 whites have
been DISTINGUISHED while $50 900 negroes, In
experienced in all law making, and more igno-
| rant than our children, have been -eniranchised
| in their stead, gn1 have thus been created alb
solute masters aud sovegejgGs over the whole
white population Of the South. ~
Because OF all this, and in opposition To al
| this, we, representatives Of the people from the
free States, in behalf Of our constituents, and
of thousands and tens Of thousands of others
who would be here represented ii the popular
power gjlhout could now constitutionally act
here, within, earnestly and soemny protest
| against this violence qp94 9gr constitution and
our people. and do hereby counsel @nl 2dvise
| all friends Of popular government to submit to
this force and fraud only yBit at the ballot box,
| operating through the elections. this great
wrong can be put right. There il no Iaw ia
the land over the constitutional law; there is
no government but constitutional government
and hence all bayonet made, al Congress i'm
pOGeo constitutions are of no weight authority