Dodgeville chronicle. [volume] (Dodgeville, Wis.) 1862-current, 1869-04-23
Some Considerations about the Fif.
teenth Amendment.

Error, engaged in combat with truth !;
sophistry, arrayed in hostility to reason,
and conservatism, resisting the innOva-
tions of progress, have never lacked, sing
ly or in combination, a multitude of spe-
cious arguments which served as spe-
cies of Notifications, behind which they
might, ss necessity demanded, take refuge
from attack. We see this exemplifed with
reference to the opposition to the pro-
posed Fifteenth Amendment, which is de-
nounced by Democrats as Infamous, on
the plea that no authority exists, under
our system of popular Goyernment, to
force upon any State, even by an amend
ment of the Constitution, change in its
fundamental structure, by which is meant
q change in the prevailing distribution of
political franchises among the community.
But this plea finds no support of fact or
theory in the articles of Union. There
we discover, in its fullest extent, that very
disputed power to force an amendment to
the Constitution upon an unwilling and
rejecting State. 1t is stipulated that three
fourths of all the States concurring in the
ratification of an amendment, proposed
according to specific forms, thereupon
such amendment shall become an integral
part of the organic law, and hence su-
preme over all the constituent members
of the Republic If the dissent of single
State, or even if one fourth of the States
could operate to defeat the ratification Of
any amendment, then the constitutional
provision would become rot merely a
nullity, but monument of stupidity, for
it would lay down conditions that could
not, by any possibility, be fulfilled, Should
it be averred, in answer, that the
Constitution does not intend an amend
ment that would produce the changes
that would result from the Fifteenth
Amendment, it may be replied that this
rebutter is only the original assumption,
in a modified form, and merely begging
the question, as the very point in contro-
versy is whether or not this Fifteenth
Amendment can be forced upon an un-
willing and dissenting State by a ratify
ina concurrence of three-fourths of all the
States The Fourteenth Amendment un-
questionably has made changes in the
fundamental structure of the States Of
Kentucky and Missouri quite as radical
as the Fifteenth could make. Will it be
maintained that the Fourteenth Amend
ment is, on that account, invalid, mas
much as some of the States refused their
sanctionl Yet the Democratic argument
against the validity of the Fifteenth ap-
plies with equal force to the Fourteenth.
Even supposing, for the sake of Illus
tration, that there are exceptions to the
Constitution amending power, of the
nature claimed, then who or what is to
determine when any one of these excep-
tions arises? If each State is sole judge
for itself in deciding this issue, then each
individual State possesses authority to de-
feat any given amendment, for, its pre-
rogative of adjudging that such amend
ment does or does not belong to the ex-
ceptionable class being complete and un-
limited, its adjudgment of invalidity
would be sufficient to prevent ratification,
even though all the rest of the States
should concur in the opposite opinion.
No matter how unjust, or absurd, or dog
matte such decision might be, there would
not be, according to the supposition, any
way to reverse it. No appellate or su-
pervisory authority would exist to deter
mine that the State had abused or prosti
tuted its prerogative Indeed, its discre-
ton would be the sole measure of its ju-
risdiction, and It's single action would be
able, in every case of proposed amend
ment, to debar the action of all its es-
States. That such power liable to such
perversions and open to such complications
forms no part of our political system, is
so palpable that it does not require anoth-
er word of exemplifcation.
1t would appear that 1t is a work of su-
pererogation to thus gravely set out to
prove what is almost as clear and indis-
putable as automatic truth, were it not
that the argument we have reviewed is
seriously and extensively adduced, not only
by Democratic Journals, but even in the
halls of legislation by Democratic politi-
clans, and finds wide currency among
men who set up for profound thinkers I'D
logical reasoners. What is this new doc
trine but the resurrection, in a new form.
of that old political heresy which silenced
the scruples Of so many when secession