The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1872-01-17

WEDNESDAY MORNING, JAN. IL, 1872.
Amnesty and Civil Rights.

1t is difficult to see why Mr.. Sumner finds
it necessary to antagonize his bill for securing
equal rights to citizens OF the United States
with the amnesty question. 1t is evident that
a majority of the members of both houses
have concluded that it is -expedient to remove
almost wholly the one disability from which
participants in the rebellion still suffer. They
have concluded that the time has come when
the third section of the fourteenth amend
ment, which is the sole remaining vestige OF
the repressiye, punitory legislation growing
out of the civil war, should be rendered al
most wholly imperative as it may be by
two-thirds vote of each house. Few people
are aware to what fine point the policy of
exclusion and repression as punishment for
rebellion has already been narrowed down.
This is the constitutional provision that con-
tains all there is left of it:
SEC g. No person shall be Senator or Rep
resentative in Congress, or elector OF PRESIDENT
or Vice President, or hold any office civil or
military, under the United States or any otate,
who having previously taken an oath as men,
Der of Congress, or as an ofhcer q tne onited
States. or as a member of any State Legsla-
ture or as an executive or judicial officer of any
State. to support the constitution of the United
States shall have engaged in rebellion or in
comfort to the enemies thereof But Congress
NAV by vote of two-thirds of each house re-
move such disabilities.
The hardship of this provision for exclud-
ing prominent ex-Rebels from Office has al
ready been relieved by bills removing the dis
abilities of certain persons. 1t has been Gus
tomary on the election of any ex-Rebel to
Office, unless he was person of peculiarly
bad antecedents, to enable him to accept it,
whether he was Republican or Democrat.
Last session general amnesty bill, by which
only the Congressman and officers of the
army and navy who betrayed their trust by
taking part with the Confederacy, are except
ed from the benefits of the act, passed the
House by the requisite two-thirds vote,
while in the Senate it obtained majority.
The same bill has just passed the House
again, and will this time probably command
the support of two-thirds of the Sen
ators. In that case the men who still
suffer punishment, such as it is. for nartirna-
sion III crle rebellion will number a few hun
dreds instead of thousands.
Mr.. Sumner is to be commended for want
ing the freedmen made secure in their new
possession of civil and political rights. This
is necessary to complete the great work in
which he has taken so prominent and honor
able apart Probably he will find few to OPP
pose him among his Republican associates.
Certainly he will receive the hearty support
of the President. His measure will be con-
sidered on its own merits. The persons af
fected by neither of the measures which Mr.
Sumner opposes to each other can have any
agency in giving either a passage, and there
seems small reason for endangering the sue
cess of one. which is essentially expedient and
just by making the other condition prece-
dent to its passage.