The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1880-09-02


agreement OF compact with another State
cannot levy imposts or duties on imports G
exports: 1t cannot coin money 1t cannC
regulate commerce.
1t cannot authorize a single ship t. 90 int
commission anywhere on the high seas; if
should, that ship would be seized as Il pirate o
contiscated by the laws of the United States
A State cannot emit bills of credit. 1t ca
enact no law which makes anything but gol
and silver and legal tender. 1t has no fla
except the flag of the Union. And there ar
many other subjects on which the States al
forbidden by the Constitution to legislate.
How much inherent sovereignty is left in
corporation which is thus shorn of all thes
| great attributes of sovereignty
But this is not all. The Supreme Court o
the United States may declare null and voi(
any lay or anw clause of the constitution OF
State which happens to be i'll conflict with thu
Constitution and laws of the United States
Again, the States appear as plaintiffs and de
PENDANTS before the Supreme Court OF the
United States. They may sue each other, ano
and until the eleventh amendment was adopt
ed citizen might sue Il State These 'soyer
elgns" may all be summoned before their com
mon superior TO be Judged. And yet they are
endowed with supreme inherent sovereignty
Again, the government of State may be
absolutely abolished by Congress, in case it is
not republican i'll form. And, finally, to Cap
the climax OF this absurd pretension, every
right possessed by one of these sovereign
States, every inherent sovereign right except
the single right to equal representation in the
Senate, may be taken away without its CON
sent, by the vote of tWo-thirds OF Congress
and three-fourths of the States But, in spite
OF all these disabilities, we hear them paraded
as independent, sovereign States, the creators
l1,N,.N
How inherently sovereign" must be that
State west Of the Mississippi which the nation
bought and paid for with the public money,
and permitted to come into the Union half
century after the Constitution was adopted !!
And yet we are told that the States are inner
emily sovereign, and created the National Gov
eminent!
Read long line of luminous decisions of
the Supreme Court. Take the life of Chief
Justice Marshall, that great judge, who found
the Constitution paper and made it a power
who found it a skeleton and clothed it with
flesh and blood. BY his wisdom and genius
he made it the potent and beneticent instru-
ment for the government of great nation.
Everywhere he repealed the insidious and
dangerous heresy of the sovereignty of the
States in the sense in which it has been used
in these debates.
Half century ago this heresy threatened
the stability Of the Gation The eloquence of
Webster and his compeers and the patriotism
and high courage of Andrew Jackson resist
ed and for a time destroyed its power; but it
continued to live as the evil genius, the incar-
nate devil, OF America; and in 1861 it was the
fatal phantom that lured eleven millions ofour
people into rebellion against their Govern
ment. Hundreds Of thousands of those who
took up arms against the Union stubbornly
resisted all inducements to that fatal step until
they were summoned by the authority of their
States.
Tie dogma of State sovereignty in alliance
with chattel slavery finally made its appeal to
that court of last resort where the laws are 81
lent and where kings and nations appear in
arms for judgment. In that awful court Of
war two questions were tried. Shall slavery
live? And is a State SO sovereign that it may
nullify the laws and destroy the Union?
Those two questions were tired on thousand
battle-fields of the war; and if war ever ''leg
islates," as leading Democrats of Ohio once
wisely affirmed, then our war glslated finally
upon those subjects and determined beyond all
controversy that slavery should never again
live in this Republic and that there is not soy
ereignty enough in any State to authorize its
people either to destroy the Union or nullify
its laws.
| am unwilling to believe that any consider
able number of Americans viii ever again
push that doctrine to the same extreme and
yet in these summer months of 1872 in the
Congress Of the reunited nation, we find the
majority drifting fast and far in the wrong di-
rection by reasserting much Of that doctrine
which the war ought to have settled forever.
And what is more lamentable, such declara-
tons as those which | read at the outset are
finding their echoes in many portions of the
country which was lately the theatre of war.
No one can read the proceedings at certain re-
cent celebrations without observing the grow
ing determination to assert that the men who
fought against the Union were not engaged in
conspiracy against the nation but
that they did right to fight for their States and
that, in the long run the Cost cause" will be
These indications are filling the
people with anxiety and Indignation; and
they are beginning to inquire whether the war
has really settled these great questions.
| remind gentlemen on the other side that
we have not ourselves revived these issues
We had hoped they were settled beyond recall,
and that peace and friendship might be fully
restored to our people.
But the truth requires me to say that there
is one indispensable ground of agreement on
which alone we can stand together, and it is
this: The war for the Union was right ever
lastingy right, applause and the war against
the Union was wrong, forever wrong. How
ever honest and sincere individuals may have
been, the secession was none the less rebellion
and treason. We defend the States in the ex-
ercise of their many and important rights, and
we defend with equal zeal the rights of the
United States. The rights and authority of
both were received from the people-the only
source of inherent power.
We insist not only that this is a nation, but
that the power of the Government, within it's
own prescribed sphere, operates directly upon
the States and upon all the people We insist
that our laws shall be construed by our own
courts and enforced by our Executive ANY
theory which is inconsistent with this doc
trine we will resist to the end.
Applying these reflections to the subject of
national elections embraced in this bill, re-
mind gentlemen that this is a national House
of Representatives. The people of my con
gressional district have right to know that
man elected in New York city is elected hon
estly and lawfully; for he joins in making laws
for forty five millions of people Every citi-
zen of the United States has an interest and
right in every election within the Republic
where national representatives are chosen.
We insist that these laws relating to our ma
tional elections shall be enforced, not nulli-
fed; shall remain on the statute-books, and
not be repealed: and that the Just and legal SUI
pervision of these elections ought never again
to be surrendered by the Government of the
United States. By our consent it never shall
be surrendered. [Applause.l
Now, Mr.. Chairman, this bill is about to be
launched upon its stormy passage. Itgoes not
into unknown waters; for its fellows have been
wrecked in the same sea. Its short, disastrous,
and, | may add, ignoble voyage is likely to be
straight to the bottom. Applause.
In reply to Mr.. Hurd, same day. Mr.. Garfield said
Mr. CHAIRMAN Two points were made by
my colleague from Ohio (AIr. Hurd,) to which
l desire to call attention. To strengthen his
position, that the United States has no voters,
he has quoted, as other gentlemen have quoted,
the case of Minor VS.. Happersett, 81 Wallace,
page 40.
The question before the court in that case
was, whether a provision in the State constitu-
ton which confines the right of voting to male
citizens OF the United States is violation Of
the fourteenth amendment of the Constitution.
The court decided that it was not; and, in de-
livering his opinion the Chief Justice took oc-
casion to say that the Omitted States has no
voters in the States of its own creation" Now
all the gentlemen on the other side who have