The Democratic press. [volume] (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]) 1868-1901, 1882-02-23

Can Congress insert in the organic
law of Il aTerritory provisions to be af-
terwards embodied in the constitution
Undoubtedly it can. There is no limit
to the ability of Congress TO enact, es.
pecially in respect to the Territories
and their Inhabitants. If Congress
were to enact that the people of a Ter
ritory, in order to entitle the same to
admission into the Union of Il state,
should include i'll their constitution a
clause making it obligatory upon each
citizen thereof to stand on his head
during the twenty-four hours of each
national holiday, its ability so to do
cannot be gainsaid or disputed. Not
only SO, but-according to the latest
precedents-if the people of such Ter
ritory should apply for admission, their
constitution not containing the pre-
scribed provision, it would be within
the legitimate authority of Congress to
reject their application.
The people of the United States
especially their rulers-have grown
wiser than their ancestors of the revo-
lutionary period in respect TO the es-
sentials of human liberty. 1t was the
current opinion that all persons of the
superior race residing within the do
main wrested from the British crown
were and ought-they and their pos
terity-to remain upon a footing of
entire civil equality. The right, inhe-
rent and 1nalienable, of self-govern-
ment was not supposed to be limited
by boundary lines or arbitrary divisions
The idea that body of men of mature
age, who were citizens in regular stand
ing in the communities where they
resided, through their voluntary re-
moval into new region, parted at
once with their civil faculties, and be-
came, in contemplation Of the law,
minors, needing the higher wisdom of
q paternal despotism for their regula-
ton, had not then been conceived.
The Forty sixth Congress of the
United States of America is, without
question, the wisest assemblage, and
an assemblage of the wisest men, that
ever came together. If there is sim
gle human being, here or elsewhere,
who doubts the truth of the assertion,
let him read the pages of the Record
and be convinced. That it could, with
out any perilous taxation of its facul-
ties, manage the affairs of the universe
is evident from the fact that it is con-
tinually in quest of occasions to en-
large the boundaries of it's agency
Unhappfly the States and their citizens
have, in a large measure, escaped from
the area of Congressional vigilance, sc
that the opportunities for trying exper.
iments upon them are not numerous
With the Territories, however, which
fortunately as we'll their inhabitants as
themselves, being in a condition in.
cipient, inchOate, embryonic, and ru
dimental-the latter having re-entered
the civil matrix, from which Congress
alone is able to deliver them, and hav.
ing no rights until they are, AS an ACT
of grace, Herewith endowed, il is 9th.
erwise. TO mold these unshapely
civil integers according to the latest
fashions in virtue aud prOpriety, sc
that the States hereafter to be admitted
into the Union shall stand unblemish.
ed by personal or social sins, faults OIL
Irregularities, is work to which it il
a pleasure to know the Forty-sixtl
Congress is as well inclined as it il
adapted-I Washington SnndayChron'
icle.