Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1880-04-03
THE LATE JUDICIAL ADVANCES TIC
WARD GENERALIZATION.


the North and West regarding the late
startling enunciations of the doctrine of
extreme Capitalization by the United States
Supreme Court is not even more alarm
ing phenomenon than the attitude of the
Court itself. So far we have found no in
telligent or appreciative comment on the
matter, save in the New York Nation.
That journal, however, has perceived the
dangerous drift of the Court, and in a
carefully written article reaches the con-
clusion that the view taken by the ma
'jority of the scope of the Fourteenth
Amendment, if it is to be carried to it's
g logical results, implies long, and we
may add unexpected, stride in the d.
erection of Capitalization. This view
our contemporary illustrates by several
conjectural cases, designed to exhibit the
extent of the encroachment upon the au-
thority Of the States involved in the de-
cision of the Court &c parte Coles. Sup
pose, it says, that Congress should fall
under the control of the anti Prohibition
lists, in the course of the long temperance
struggle, and suppose it should then leone
81 to the conclusion that State system OF
''prohibition summarily enforced by con-
g tiscation, such as has been resorted to in
several States, is system which deprives
"liquor-sellers of property without due
process of law, and should pass an
Act making it penal offense to obey
"the State law. Suppose, further, that the
+" Supreme Court took the same view OF
q the State system. Under the Coles de-
" cision would not the Court be bound
% to uphold the Legislature ?" A still
more pertinent Illustration is then given,
as follows The State system of taxation
" of real and personal property generally
&c is only defensible as an exercise of power
sc which no one hitherto has had the right
% to supervise. As a matter of reason and
right, it is hard to imagine anything
"more like depriving man of property
e without due process of law than taxing
g him on the full value of property which
{" is already mortgaged to its full value
q Can Congress interfere with such sys
60 tenn by criminal legislation If it can,
''what becomes of the sovereign taxing
power and the decision of the Supreme
sc Court in the well-known case of Collector
g as. Day, In which it was said that any
e government whose means employed IL
sc conducting its operations are made sub
'' iect to the control of another and dis
GO tinet government can exist only al
SO the mercy of that government -
The application of this last eta
ton to the case in point is strik
ingly clear and pertinent. The truth
is, that the desire of the North to make the
subjugation of the South thorough and
permanent, and its coincident resolve tt
retain the South in the Union with the
ostensible independence of the origina
federal compact, have resulted in the
PRONUNCIATION and acceptance of doctrines
wholly incompatible with the conservation
of separate sovereign rights in any of the
States. So long as the centralizing
tendencies of the post-rebellion Legislation
seemed to be directed towards the better
handling of Southern reconstruction, they
caused no uneasiness at the North, nol
were the Democratic protests against them
regarded in any other light than as fac
tious objections to necessary and ex.
pedient measures. But Congress has long
since reached the limit of action in regard
to Southern reconstruction, and now the
Interpretation by the highest Court Of
the constitutional amendments which
were designed to secure only the enfran.
chisement of the negro, show that in the
application of general rules there can be nc
discrimination, and that the abrogation OF
Southern rights in the South must be
balanced by the abrogation of the same
rights throughout the Union.