Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1869-05-01
SATURDAY MORNING, MAY |, Isl
A P~ettifogger's Plea.

Mr.. Garficlde. in his Vancouver speech.
laid down his position on the question of
Reconstruction. We quote from the re-
port to the Orcgonion
"The question resolves itself into this: Can
the Congress of the United States control the ter
ritory within their own jurisdiction !: There were
ten Of these states which had BY every power they
possessed, severed their connection with the Union.
They called their Conventions, abolished their State
constitutions, and severed, so far as their acts could
sever, all their connection with the Union: lie held
that the power that could create could destroy:
The States framed their own constitutions. and
having framed them they could destroy Them
This, it will be perceived. is a very clear
and full endorsement Of the doctrine of Sc
cession. The right or power. or possibili-
ty. of u States getting out of the nion. by
any means whatever. was the issue of the
war. and upon the Southern view Mr.
tiarfclde seemed to be perfectly at home.
If the doctrine were not Il plausible one. it
is scarcely possible that our Southern
brethren would have attempted to vindi-
cate it by the sword. The error. Of course.
occurs in the premise, and is such as no
clcar-hcadcd man who does not believe in
absolute State sovereignty would fall into.
If the States were what Calhoun and his
disciples held them to he. absolute and I'M
qualified sovcrcigntics, then would the
power to frame the constitutions be fol-
lowed by the power of destroying them.
but with the formation Of the Federal
Government by the adoption of the Consti-
tuition of the United States, the original
and absolute sovereignty of the States as
serted by the Revolution. became qualified.
ffthc right to destroy its constitution ever
belonged to u State. it was taken away by
Art. ". Sec. 1 of the Constitution Of the
United States, which provides that The
United States shall guarantee to every State
Il republican form of Government" Ger
tainly if the Federal Government had the
power to make the guarantee good. no
State once having a republican form Of
government could by any possibility. either
forfeit or destroy it. The State might
amend its constitution. but could not repeal
it. as that would leave it with no form OF
government at all.
1t is, perhaps, mere useless folly to refer
to the Constitution at this late day, when
men like Mr.. Garfcllc can and do, in their
public speeches, place the mere Legislative
cnactmcnts of a partisan Congress upon a
par with the organic law of. the land. as he
did at Vancouver, in his pcttitogging an
swcr to the charge that the Fifteenth
Amendment to the Constitution empowers
Congress to make voters Of Cinnamon,
This" he says, sis no such thing. Ac'
cording TO that amendment. no one can be.
come a voter unless he first becomes natur.
allied, and our naturalization laws forbid
any one to he naturalizcd except he be a
white foreigner" The Democratic party
is opposed to the Fifteenth Amendment
because like all other amendments pro.
posed by tho Radical party, it gives Con
gross the Constitutional power to do what
the people would never sanction, if they
could have an expression upon it. 1t il
precisely thus that the ncsrocsof the South
have been lifted up, step by step, through
all the grades, to absolute superiority.