The Wellington enterprise. [volume] (Wellington, Ohio) 1867-188?, 1881-06-02
State Rights Knocked on the Head.

AT the breaking out of the war a
citizen of Rockingham County, Va,
owed Pennsylvania firm a considera-
BILE debt, for which the creditors sued
as soon as hostilities ceased. The
debtor set up, as a defense to the suit,
that the Confederate Government had
coniscated debts due to alien enemies;
that, under this law, the debt had been
paid to the Confederacy, and that the
debtor was not obliged to pay it sec
ond time. This plea was sustained by
the Rockingham court, whereupon the
Pennsylvania parties applied to the
Virginia Court of Appeals for a writ to
bring the case before it for review.
The Court of Appeals denied the ap-
plication, affirming in the denial that
the decision in Rockingham was
''plainly rightr' The plaintiffs then
carried the case to the Supreme Court
of the United States, which issued
mandate to the Virginia Court of Ap-
peals to reverse its opinion and review
the Rockingham decision. This order
the Virginia Court of Appeals refused
to obey, declaring that its own deci-
sions "are final so far as the Federal
as well as the State judiciary is con-
cerned."
The Rockingham case was then car
ried regularly into the United States
Supreme Court, which promptly de-
clared that the Virginia tribunal was
not justified in holding it "plainly
right to confiscate Southern debts due
to Northern loyal creditors, and or
dered final judgment in favor of the
persons to whom the debt was due.
Mr.. Justice Field, himself Demo
in mr. tho ~
Gently decided and now published, says:
$50 long as this decision, made by the
Virginia Court of Appeals, remains un-
reversed, it will be authority to all the
inferior courts of Virginia that the con-
fiscation of debts due to loyal citizens
under an act of the Confederate Gov
ernment enforced as a law of the State
was valid proceeding"
The point in this matter is, not that
the Supreme Court of the United States
decided in favor of the loyal creditor,
and against the validity of the Confed-
crate confiscation acts; but that the
Virginia Court of Appeals should be
found defending con6scation by "a re-
VOLT which assumed to be Govern
ment, and that fifteen years after the
revolt was suppressed.
1t was to be expected that the Su-
preme Court would assert, as it has
done, in no unmistakable terms, the
superior force of National authority.
The only regretable feature of the de-
cision is that it should be necessary.
And this necessity, and the decision
which is its result, will attract the at
tention of the country to the South and
its peculiar methods of thought quite as
much as will the open violence with
which National authority is resisted in
other parts of that section.
The decision of the Virginia Court OF
Appeals will be accepted as Virginia
sentiment. And in SO accepting it the
country will come to the conclusion that
there yet exists in the Old Dominion q
settled purpose to sweep away all the
results of the war, with the Constitu-
tional and legal safeguards that fol-
lowed it, and to affirm an extreme doc
trine of State Rights such as if prac-
ticed would completely paralyze Ma
tional authority.
The Virginia decision would make
the bonds of the Union rope of sand,
and, confirmed to tho States lately in
rebellion, q power over the lives of the
millions rescued from slavery, which
events have proven they would use
only to turn the humanity of emancipa-
tion into a consuming curse. What
bayonets decided they would undecide.
They would reverse the verdict of Ap-
pomattox in a Richmond Court. And
they would leave the Union, with its
debt and sacriticial suffering, where il
was when the Montgomery Govern
ment decreed the most unjustifable
war of history.
Being animated by these purposes,
and giving them expression through
theirpress, at the hustings, in the Senate,
and through the mouths OF grave and
South cannot complain if the men who
defended and saved the Union hesitate
to entrust them with its CONTROL
Detroit Post and Tribune.