The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1871-04-29
The Great Democratic DinlcuIty.


The Great Democratic DimcuIty.
The great difficulty which faces the demo-
cracy Of the nation is that OF harmonizing the
Northern and Southern wings of the party on
the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments.
Leading Southern democratic journals keep up
the cry that upon these issues their Northern
brethren must face the music. The Mobile
Register, for exam pie, says that while
the thirteenth amendment (Which abolished
and prohibited slavery is all right, the
reconstruction amendments fourteenth,
declaring all persons born or naturalized
in the United States, citizens thereof and
entitled to equal civil rights, and repudiating
the rebel war debt, and declaring sacred the
Union war debt, and the fifteenth amendment,
establishing negro suffrage-stand upon another
footing. The Southern democracy do not and
will not recognize them; but what do the
Southern democracy demandp Nothing
more" says our Mobile democratic contempt
rary, "than the national democracy has already
conceded in the New York Convention of 1868,
when, in its platform, it declared these recon-
struction measures unconstitutional, revolu-
tionary, null and void" This is all; but this
they do and will demand.
Here, then, is the great democratic diff
Guilty; and from General Grants course on the
Ku Klux question it is evident that he intends
to force the fight upon these two amend
ments, 80 obnoxious to the democracy of the
South and never recognized by the democracy
of the North. A late interviewer says that
Mr.. Stephens, of Georgia, Vice President of
the ''so-called Confederate States" pro-
nounces the fourteenth and fifteenth amend
ments "gross usurpations of power, passed by
force and fraud" But Northern democratic
organ, the New York World, proposes demo-
cratic compromise upon this difficulty, VIII
That the democracy Of the nation consent to
the recognition Of these amendments until we
have judgment upon them from the Supreme
Court. Now if these amendments can be
carried into the Supreme Court we can under
stand how they can be there upset when the
opportunity offers by the simple process of
reconstructing the Court itself. How is this?
In the constitution the methods of adopting
amendments thereto are laid down, but the
method of the proclamation of the ratification
is left to Congress. So by the law of 1918 on
the subject the Secretary of State is en-
powered to make the proclamation, and under
this law the thirteenth, fourteenth aud fifteenth
amendments have been declared ratified and
''valid, to all intents and purposes" as parts
of the constitution. The thing is fixed by the
voucher of the Secretary of State and to the
Supreme Court, as to the rest of us, it is the
supreme law of the land" Like the recog-
milton of State, these amendments are be-
yond the reach of the Supreme Court. If the
question of the creation of the new State of
West Virginia had been within the jurisdiction
of the Court, it is morally certain that the pro-
cesses by which that State was created would
have been declared irregular and void; but
Chief Justice fancy had declared in the Rhode
Island Dorr case the authority Of Congress in
the matter complete and conclusive. Equally
so is the voucher Of the Secretary of State,
whose intelligence and good faith are not ques-
toned touching the ratification of constitu-
tional amendment. 1t can, after his procla-
nation, be upset only by another amendment,
adopted in regular way.
The Supreme Court dodge, then, proposed
as compromise to the Southern democracy,
will not do. The Northern democracy must
persuade their Southern brethren to acquiesce
in the amendments in question, or go over to
them in the population Of said amendments,
or prepare for sectional split upon them. 1t
is clear that General Grant intends to force
the fight upon this subject. II is equally clear
that II the Southern democracy will only con-
sent to fixed facts he may be flanked in 1872;
but will those leading Southern fire-eaters
consent? That is the question, and there is
the difficulty.