Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1870-02-16
TIE STATES AND coSansss.

liOu Ol the GnitCO Ctsltte, . @oOu. NeA
suInmated, whether legally or not makes
no sort Of difference to the revolutionary
cabal at Washington. This amendment
confers upon Congress extraordinary If
not absolute powers, but it is already fore
seen that the enforcement of this amend
ment in theStates by congressional action,
will give rise to troubles these architects
of ruin" little anticipated. 1t was very
easy matter to empower Congress ''to en-
force this article by appropriate legisla-
ton, " but it quite a different matter to
secure its enforcement. The more the
subject is looked into, the more grave and
serious does this prospective trouble be-
come, and the more clearly docs the fact
reveal itself that the laborof dcIol1tingthat
amendment is as as nothing compared to
the coming labor of executing it. 1t
has been over and over again proclaimed
that the fifteenth amendment would give
US peace; we shall be more than content
it does not give US sword. Take the
fourteenth amendment-fo it, too, threat
ems the same formidable difficulties in its
enforcement, as the fifteenth. This
amendment has been part of the Con-
stitution of the United States for more
than year, and yet it is thus far dead
letter on the book-as hfelesss and force
less as though it had never been adopted.
The following is one Of the sections of
this amendment.
Sec. 8. No person shall be Senator or
Representative in Congress, or Elector of
President and Vice President, or hold any
Office, civil or military, under the United
States or under any State, who, having
previously taken an oath, as member of
| Congress, or as member of any State
Legislature, or as an executive or judicial
officer of any State, to support the Con-
stitutiOn of the United States, shall have
engaged in instruction or rebellion against
the same, or given aid and comfort to the
enemies thereof. But Congress may, by
a vote of two-thirds of each house, re-
move such disability.
This provision of the amendment Is at
this time disregarded in many States of
the Union. 1t is disregarded in Kentucky,
where no less than one hundred State,
legislative, county and municipal offices
are held by persons of the prescribed
class. 1t is disregarded in Maryland, and
there is reason to believe that it is violated
in several of the Southern States, even
where 'Goyalty" still blooms and flourishes
The amendment gives to Congress "power
to enforce by appropriate legislation the
provisions of this article, " but such Sap
propriate legislation" has never been en-
acted. 1t is intimated that en-
forcing laws will be passed by
the Congress now in session, and
there are many gentle and exemplary ad-
vocates of the ''peacen which President
Grant invoked, says the St. Louis Repu5-
lica,l, who already exult over the disor-
ders which the election of the one hun
dred Office-holders in Kentucky, chosen
by the people to perform local duties in
which the people of that State alone are
concerned, will create. Itispretty certain
that the enforcement of the amendment
viii require, not only stringent and com
pick laws, but Federal officials to execute
them in those States whose populations
are unfriendly to its provisions. Suppose,
for instance, person of the prescribed
class in Kentucky, Maryland, or even
New York or Pennsylvania, offers
himself as candidate for sheriff,
and the people elect him; or suppose
person of the prescribed class in any
State should be elected to the Legislature
and such cases as these viii be necessarily
occurring, for the people generally elect
their favorites to office, whether they are
technically qualified or not-will the
Federal government, in such events,
deem it a duty to interfere to prevent the
elected sheriff or legislator from taking
his Office, or scat2 1t has done this in
Georgia; but viii the people of New
York, or New Jersey. or Pennsylvania
submit as quietly as the people of Georgia
did? Would an Ohio, or New York, or
Illinois Legislature, even if Republican in
in its composition, acquiesce meekly in
the reduction of itself to the ignoble con-
dition of the Legislature of Georgia
with its sessions called and adjourned, its
officers appointed, and its proceedings
arrested and reviewed by some Gen.
Terry who should prorogue it
from day to day while his military COM
mission was deciding on the qualification
of its members2 Would not the fire.
quent recurrence of such instances of
Federal intervention in the purely local
concerns of States offend Republicans
themselves and revive into new life and
activity the trampled doctrine of States
rights! 1t is within the limit of proba-
bilities that the people in some of the
States may elect for their Governor per-
son of the prescribed class, who had
never submitted to the humiliating and
self-accusing conditions of the Butler bill
for removing disabilities. In such case,
the enforcement of the amendment would
be attended by graver difficulties still, for
itwould bring the Federal government in
conflict with the whole people and the
official power of that State.
The enforcement of the fifteenth
amendment would be attended by similar
results. In California the people are as
intensely hostile to Chinese suffrage as
the people of Kentucky are to negro suf-
fragc, and the forced admission of the
Chinese to the ballot-box through the of
fensive agency of minute Federal su-
pervision of registry-booBs, would Ger
tainly produce deep dissatisfaction, if it
did not lead to something worse. The
constitutions of nearly all the States in
the Union, including those that have rati-
fed the fifteenth amendment prohibit
the very thing which that amend
ment adopts. It's observance by these
States would therefore involve a
violation of their own constitution
and registration and election laws, or a