The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1871-06-30
WESTON, June Z. 1871.

| though signed simply Cd. B." was written
by him 1--WE doubt noD:
| WESTON, June 7, 1871.
| Dear Sir,-I have not had time until this
evening to answer yours of the 2Sth ult.
Since yours was received the Democracy of
| Ohio have, by emphatic and unequivocal
resolutions, adopted the same line of action
which some of us deemed proper imme-
diately after the 10Th amendment was pro-
mulgated. We supported the Flick amend
tment, which contained only an i'm
piled admission that the 18th amend
ment was effective. The Ohio Demo-
cracy have in effect declared the
| same thing. Those Of us who struggled
| against actual and threatened invasions
upon the Constitution have been sadly
compelled to submit, not only to these, but
to still more alarming assaults upon it,
| through the agency Ofamendments intended
further to withdraw from the States powers
previously belonging to them, and to clothe
the Federal Government with powers
which, if not rigidly restrained, will, in the
end, lead to Il complete centrailZltiOn of all
governmental power in the legislative and
| eyacutiTc department OF the Govern
ment OF the United States, and to Il
consequent subyersion of the theory of
it, as at first ests blished by its revered toun-
ders, and alike destructive OF all State pOw-
ers. Since the war, the tendencies evinced
by acts OF Congress and by Executive usur-
patons, have been too patent III this direc-
ton to haye escaped public observation.
| The late act, commonly called " the bayo-
net act" has an alarming portent about it,
and it does seem to me, that he who fails to
comprehend the magnitude of the danger
! to which we are exposed, must indeed be
| blind in his confidence in the helmsmen
L i1, no q nf orr nd tnIIt
ferent to the teachings of history.
How are we to avert this destruction ?
What are we to do? Shall we engage in
dsputation to decide who was right ID the
war and who was wrong, and at the con-
Icluson find the question still unsettled
Shall we blIndly ignore all that has been
done, and persiStently seek to impress pub
lie opinion with abstract theories, and
allow the raging current to 60 on, to the en-
tire destruction OF the States and to the con-
centration of all power in the Federal Gov
ernment? Ihope not. we cannot now undo
the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth
amendments. Ihe thirteenth We would not
if we could the 14th Is the Pandora's
box from which the recent Congressional
poison has emanatcd, and from which Con-
gress and the Executive pretend to claim
this alarming authority, and yet we cannot
do this. The fifteenth amendment, bad a
it is, has complications and embarrassing
difficulties about it. 1t reads as follows:
"The right Of citizens Of the United State:
to u0te shall not be denied or abridged bythe
United States or by any State, on account q
race, color, or precious condition Of Seres
tude." , .e
Radical ingenuity, In utter violation ol
the Constitution, and without the sanction
Of single precedent, first. before the tif
teenth amendment was adopted, coerced
negro sufrage in all the southern States
| except LII Tennessee, and thus gave the
blacks political power. low The difficulty
must occur to us that without the fifteenth
amendment, and with the power in the
State alone TO regulate suffrage in the sew
eral States In which the negroes have nu-
merical preponderance, they would de-
prive the white man, on account of his
color, of the right to vote, and allow
only the negro to vote! This we cannot
consent to ; aud yet it is one of the striking
complications which enthral us. However
vicious the measures employed may have
been by which these nefarious amendments
were adopted, yet if we undertake to treat
them AZ invalid We are lost. We are not
responsible for them they exist without
our agency the skirts of the Democracy
are untarnIshed with this odiun. Loving
1.-THE Constitution, we must .suomit 10 its
parts, and we should employ all e1orts
to save the good which is lett In II.
The Democracy must practice It's ira
ditional love of this instrument, ana When
in mower, especially to prevent abuses un-
der the shadow of the fourteenth ano NJ