The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1870-01-11

Of that conduct by bill. Very easily we
can make it criminal offence.
this bill. - =. : =
MIR. Stewart: we ca,, do that without de-
laying the admission Of Virginia. Virginia
has complied with all requirements made
OF her, and is acting in good faith, and If
we are to admit her let us do it now, and
gracefully, unless some good point be made
against it.
Dir. Edmunds: Cannot we require them
to exclude those persons?
Mr.. Stewart: OF course we can.
Msr. Eidmunds: Ought we not to do it7
| Mr. Stewart: It amounts to nothing.
90 not think there will be any practic
Denent to be derived from it.
u seems 10 me mere excuse when 1t Is
n9s 10 change the character of the body at
al Wnen II Is not to change it's minority
nor affect its acts in the least. IF we are to
enforce that provision Of the fourteenth
amendment, we have so to enforce It nnon
q great many people in the South. md we
had better pass IN Independent law.
MIR. Edmunds We have got the opportu.
nifty to enforce it now in this bill.
Dir. Pomeroy: II the subject is to 20
| 1t this morning.
Mr.. Stewart: It il not going over.
| Dir. Sumner suggest to my friend thai
we had better proceed to the consideration
Of Executive business, with the understand
ing that this joint resolution go over unit
next Monday.
Mr.. Stewart : We can have no understand
ing of that sort. Let us have vote upor
the measure.
Mr.. Pomeroy I merely wanted to say tt
the Senator from Nevada that it is with me
question of fact whether the people o.
Virginia have complied with all that was
required of them by the last act of Con.
grcss-I mean the act Of April 10, 1862
will, for the moment, say nothing about the
test-oath but the sixth section Of that aci
did require that that Legislature, when
duly organized, should ratify certain con-
stitutional amendments referring to the
fourteenth and fifteenth amendments.
The Senator, like myself, is very anxious
that the fifteenth amendment, when it does
become a law, shall become law concern
ing which there shall be no question. Now,
I undertake to tell the Senator from Ne
yada that that Legislature never were duly
organized so that they could do anything.
Mir. Stewart Then you come il conflict
again with the Attorney-General.
Mr.. Pomeroy: The Attorney General
never said they were.
Mr.. Stewart : Yes, he did.
Mr. Pomeroy What | was saying was
that, no matter what they have done, if they
were never duly organized they have never
legally done anything, and therefore their
pretending to pass the fifteenth constitu-
tonal amendment is no adoption Of that
amendment at all, because they were not
condition by virtue of their organization to
do anything legally. I only wished to call
the attention of the Senate to the simple
fact contained in q Journal of the Senate
| Senator, by referring to them, will find that
when the members came together the
Secretary of State submitted to the
Legislature the fact that almost al
the members had taken certain oaths. They
had four kinds Of oaths, the blanks of which
hold in my hand, anti-duelling oaths ant
old oaths required of the members Of the
Legislature before the war. Each member
elected went up to the table and took some
Of these blanks, and filled them up ant
signed them, not in the presence Of thu
body, but in the Office Of the Secretary O
State, and he returned them to the body.
Mr.. Morton expressed the opinion thai
perhaps the only question properly ut issue
was as to whether, under the reconstruc
ton laws, the members of the Legislature
of Virginia were required to take the test.
oath. If the affirmative was true, then the
Legislature had not been properly organ
| lied if the negative, then the reverse. But
one provision of the reconstruction acts
had been referred to as bearing on thi;
point, and that was section Of act Of July
| 10, 1867, which specified the imposition o.
the tcst-oath of 1862 in the cases of persons
appointed or elected under any so-calleC
State or municipal authority, meaning the
pretended State organization created by re-
construction.
1t would not be commended that that ap
piled to members of the Legislature elected
under the reconstruction acts, because the
requirement had sole reference to n prior
condition of affairs. He made the broad
statement that the spirit Of the reconstruc'
ton acts, from beginning to ending, gave to
all rebels the right to take part in the re0r'
ganzation of these States, except such as
were embraced in the clause Of the four
teenth amendment, participation in re-
belion not being regarded as an 1ne'
Eligibility, but simply those who were
embraced in the clause referred to-
In support of this view he quoted
from the various reconstruction acts
good faith attempts now to create q test OIL
qualification for office that did not exist,
when members of the Legislature were
elected. 1t was equally incumbent upon
Congress to keep its faith as upon the States
of the South it was to him source OF re-
gret that the test oath had not been imposed
in the first instance; but Congress had not
started out upon that principle, and now
must continue in the course already Defined.
Mr. Drake moved as an amendment
to the bill to add the following: "Pro-
yidcd, That should the Legislature OF
said State, or at any time hereafter,
pass any act or resolution reconsider
ing or annulling its ratification of the tif-
teenth amendment to the Constitution OF
the United States, the passage OF such act
or Joint resolution shall operate to exclude
said State from representation IN Congress,
and to admit said State to it's condition i'm.
mediately prior to the passage Of this act"
He said this amendment would prevent the
rebel States from playing the game when
had been tried by other States III the
North-of repeating their former action so
soon "a they could do so with safety to
themselves.
Mr.. Warner expressed his earnest desire
to see an early settlement of the political
questions concerning the late rebelllous
States, which had occupied the Senate for
four years past. The State of Alabama, by
reason of her early admission and repre-
sentation in Congress, was really five years
ahead of her neig hbors of Georgia and Nils,
sissippi. in which States q less enlightened
policy in public affairs has been pursued:
On behalf of these States, he asked that
some definite measures should be promptly
taken, for the reconstructed legislation dld
not afford that entire security anu protec-
ton to which the citizens were entitled,
and which Congress should afford. Congress
would have to abandon the proscriptive
policy Us one barren of good results, and to
apply itself to the suppression Of crime and
lawlessness.
In this connection he remarked that he
would 90 to the South with the halter in
one hand, universal amnesty in the other
In other words, he would hang the muir.