The Dallas daily herald. [volume] (Dallas, Tex.) 1873-1887, 1881-06-07
TH' Les sERALD. tuesday, MORNING JUNE :.

law, to remove from the state constitution.
or rendering imperative, that provision
which restricts the suffrage to the white
race Thenceforwsrd the statute prescribing
the qualification Of jurors was itself enlarged
Ia its operation so as to embrace sill who BY
the state constitution, rs modified BY the
supreme law Of the land, were qualified TO
VOTE" etc.
The same view was taken by the proyin-
cial court in its tcision which was alleged
as ground of error. On behalf of the &C.
eussd, the point was made that the lsas of
Delaware forbid the selection Of negroes as
Jurors. ave answer this" said one OF the
judges "by saying tina! We have no such
laws. The fourteenth amendment
and the act Of congress to enforce It, or
either, are superior to our state constitution,
aud by them it was repealed, SO far as the
word white is employed. There has
been an excision or eIasure of that word, and
the consii ution is TO be construed Ms il such
word had never been there" "The point"
said another judge. sis not true and ought
not TO be asserted. There is not lawyer
tba. has ever doubted, since the adoption Of
the fourteenth amendment. and that the
word white in cur constitution was entirely
stricken cut" The significance of these de-
cisions is in the extraordinary precision and
postiveness Of their presentation of the re.
iation of the nation and the provinces to
esch Their US that Of sovereign and subject;
or sovereignty and subsection. Thi: relation
is, indeed, serted ia the declaration of our
political law that 'this constitution and the
acts OF congress agreeable thereto shall be
the supreme law of the land, any.
thing in the constitution or laws OF any state
to the contrary notwithstanding. But tho pre-
else meaning OF this ia somewhat obscured by
It's verbal muddiness. How can there be
anything in provincial law contrary to q
supreme law Of the land? Both the national
courts and the provincial courts of Delaware,
in these decisions, declare that there can not
DO anything In tho nature of provincial
law that is contrary TO the law of the lsni.
II there are words or phrases in tho veIbol
body of provincial enactment which are
contrary to the national law, they are mere
words and phrases without any force, mean
ing, or character Of law. The law of the
province is not whatever tho people of the
province, or their legislative assembly, have
expressed in the words of IN enactment. 1t
is that which has been made law of the
province by the authority of the nation,
acting throug neither its general or its local
organs. There i. one and on,v one, sovereign
authority. Though the various exertions Of
this one authority have been devolved upon
many tferent organs. some having gan raj,
some local, func ions, the authority which
has created then all and clothed each with
It's distinct otilce, and by which all are condi,
tlonei and bound, is authority of the nation.
From this there Is no possible way of escape
To this explanation Of our complex political
system political thought has been tending,
with increasing force, for century The
more carefully our Jurisprudence is studied,
the more clearly will it be seen that it, also
has moved with s!eadiness in the same di.
rection.