The Portland daily press., 1880-09-07
Are the Amendments in Danger?
[Rutland Herald.l ,.j s

lnutAaAAo ackdiu.I
The Democrats Indignantly deny that the
Constitutional amendments are iE danger in
case the South shall rule the nation. Let us
take a little evidence on this point. The
bawling Blackburn boasted in the extra ses-
sion that the Democracy proposed to wipe out
all the war legislation. The legislation re-
ferred to included the resolutions of Congress
proposing the thirteenth, fourteenth and ff'
teenth amendments. Democratic hostility to
the amendments was manifested even after
their ratification in several States, the Demo
cratic Legislatures of which attempted to
withdraw the assent given by their Republi-
can predecessors. fta
The ground of this Democratic attempt at
revocation was that the ratification was invalid.
Senator Edmunds, in 1879 with characteris-
tic sagacity, proposed the following resolutions
for the purpose of placing the Democracy on
record:
the 18th, 14th and 18th amendments to the Consti-
tuition Of the United States have been eagally rat
nea ana are as valid and Of tRe th sane
every State of the Union, and that it is alse the
right and duty of Congress to enforce said amend
ments. and TO protect every citizen in the exercise
of all the rights thereby secured by laws of the
general character already passed for that purpose
and by futher appropriate legislation far such
listing laws; and that is the duty of the executive
department of the government faithfully and with
diligence to carry all such laws into impartial
cution, and Congress to appropriate all moneys
needful to that end.
Sixteen Democratic Senators, namely, Mess
rs. Bailey, Bayard, Beck, Cockrell, Coke,
Davis Of West Virginia, Eaton, Garland, Cor
don, Harris, Hereford, Hill, Herman, Lamar,
Morgan and voorhees,, voted in the negative,
or against the resolution, thus declaring that
they did not recognize the 18th, 14th and 18th
amendments as valid, or that Congress and
the executive were bound to act in conformity
with them.
The Troy Times makes the following forci-
ble comments upon these facts:
1t must be admitted, of course, that if the
amendments are not binding upon Congress
and the executive, the supreme court is equal
ly free from obligation; and here comes in the
secret OF the bill introduced in the House of
Representatives last session bv Mr.. Manning
OF Mississippi, to increase the number of JUS
ticeS OF the supreme court to twenty-one.
Should a Democratic President be chosen the
Senate being now Democratic, all the twelve
additional justices would be appointed from
the Democratic party. Under the pressure of
Confederate domination, the new justices
would all be selected with special reference to
their opinions in regard to the amendments.
Then what would be easier than to make up
a case involving the validity of these amend
ments and have them all declared void? That,
and nothing else, is the purpose of the Man
ming bill. And after the amendments are wiped
out what would become OF the political results
supposed to have been accomplished by the
bloody and costly struggle of 1865? Not
vestige of them would be left except the abo-
lition of slavery-and there would be nothing
whatever to prevent any of the States from re
viving that dreadful institution. The citizen
ship OF the colored people of the South would
be gone; JEFF Davis could aspire at will to the
highest honors of the Republic; the national
debt might repudiated the Confederate debt
saddled upon the country; and, in short, the
whoie southern system as it existed before the
war would stand restored