Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-03-20
THE LAST STEP TOWARDS cESTRkL-
IZATroN.

ton, the public judgment is warped by
partisan prejudice, and Republicans are
led to believe that they have witnessed
fresh triumph for the principles of their
party, when in reality they are unwlttlngiy
consuming to the removal of all those
checks to Capitalization which afford the
strongest guarantees of popular liberty.
The decision of the United States Supreme
Court. in the matter of j. D. Coles and
the Commonwealth of Virginia, petition
ers for the writ of habeas corpus, marks
decided forward step in that modern
policy of governmental metamorphosis
which is gradually withdrawing from and
denying to the States those elements of
independent sovereignty and local self
government never surrendered by them
to the Federal Government. So insidi-
ously is this transformation proceeding
that it promises to have extended beyond
the possibility of check or retracement be-
fore the nation has clearly realized what it
is that is being done. Twenty years ago
the perception of the reserved rights OF
the States was so much keener than now
that such decision as this would certainly
have created profound sensation,
and as certainly have provoked the
most energetic and earnest censure,
whereas to-day it passes with no
more notice than consists in the customary
Endorsement held indispensable by every
party serf when a doctrine supposed to be
partisan in its character is promulgated.
In fact the concernment here is not parti-
san, but national Because the Common
wealth of Virginia is a party to the pro-
ceeding, and the political rights of negroes
are in question, it has been hastily con-
cluded that the whole matter was one of
reconstruction, and that inasmuch as the
Court had ruled against the State, another
defeat for the Secessionists " was to be
scored. 1t is necessary to point out that
though in truth reconstruction is here
dealt with, it is not alone the techni-
cal reconstruction of the Southern
! States but the absolute reconstruction
of the Union between the States, that is
now in course of being arranged. In the
case under consideration Judge of
County Court in Virginia was indicted in
the United States District Court of the
Western District of Virginia for having ex-
cluded end failed to select as grand and
petit Jurors citizens of that county, on ac-
count of race, color and previous condition
of servitude. The rule there prevailing is
that the County Judge shall annually pre-
pare list of persons for jury duty, being
compelled to limit his selection to such
persons as are swell qualified to serve as
Jurors" are ''of sound judgment, " and
" free from legal exception. The indict-
ment does not pretend to specify the ex-
clusion of any particular persons, nor to
set forth any particular ofense, but charges
the Judge broadly with having excluded,
we suppose, the whole colored race. The
United States Supreme Court re-
fuses to grant the petition of the
Commonwealth of Virginia for the
release of its judicial officer, con-
fined on this charge, and maintains the
right of United States authorities to pro-
coed against State authorities acting under
State laws, on the ground that the four
teenth constitutional amendment warrants
such action. The question whether the
rights conferred upon negroes by the
amendments and the laws enforcing them
include right to be drawn upon juries is
not an unimportant one, for it goes to the
entire issue of the distinction between
civil and political rights. What that
distinction is has been very clearly pointed
out by Judge Field in his dissenting opinion
in this case. "Civil rights, he says, 'tare
"absolute and personal Political rights,
on the other hand, are conditional and
dependent upon the discretion of the
"elective or appointing persons, whether
that be the people acting through the
"ballot or one of the departments
"of the Government The civil rights of
1.-THE individual are never to be withheld,
"and may be judicially enforced. The
"political rights which he may enjoy, such
Gas holding office aud discharging
"public trust, are qualified, because their
possession depends upon his fitness, to be
'adjudged by those whom society has
"clothed with the elective authority.
This is very lucid. Judge Coles, for exam
pie, might have found, on candid inquiry,
that no negro in his county was fit to be
invested with the responsibilities of a
juror. Yet according to the Court it was
none the less his duty to draw such unfit
persons, notwithstanding the fact that his
judicial oath prohibited him from doing
anything of the kind. And here we see
issue joined, squarely and uncompromis-
ingly between State and Federal authority.
1t is neither necessary nor desirable to i'm
port any political bias into the considera-
ton of this subject. 1t transcends all
party issues, for it involves the question of
the future of the whole republic. 1t is
here deliberately set forth by the highest
judicial authority that the constitutional
amendments give the Federal Government
powers over the State which are incom-
patible with the maintenance of any indie
pendence whatever, and which not only
facilitate but hasten the transformation of
the Government from federation of SOW
ereign States to centralized democratic
absolutism. The doctrine now asserted
goes the length of subordinating all State
authority to Federal authority for it in
wolves the right of the latter to traverse
all State legislation, to set aside the rules