The Brookhaven leader. [volume] (Brookhaven, Miss.) 1883-1891, 1890-08-07
rs MISSISSIPPI THE EQUAL OF
THE OTHER STATESY

nm CAhAAsAt - a ~ a ~
The Constitutional Convention will
I've very much restricted in its powers
10 deal with the suffrage question if,
as the Memphis Commercial and some
of our Mississippi exchanges think,
there is validity attached to the act of
Congress which provided that Missis-
sippi should he admitted to repre-
seBtatiOn in the National Legislature
us one of the States of The Union,
provided her fundamental law shall
never be so amended or changed as to
deprive any citizen or class of citizens
of the United States of the right
to vote who are entitled to
vote under the Constitution of
1869. But is not this condition
wholly invalidf 1t would seem
that there is no warrant in the Ma
tiOnal Constitution for the admission
of State into the Union save upon
perfect equality with all other States,
aud we are advised that such Is the
decisions of the Supreme Court Of the
United States.
Our attention has been called by n
legal friend to some of our own State
history not now without significance.
1t seems that the original act of Con-
gress under which Mississippi was
admitted into the Union in 1917, it
self undertook to impose conditions
upon her Statehood. Among other
things it was provided that she
should by an irrepealable ordinance
forever guarantee the free and open
navigation of all the navigable rivers
in the State.
In 1850 the Legislature of Missis-
sippi created a Board of Commission
ers of nomochitto river and author
lied it to improve the navigation of
that stream. This board, in the fur
therancc of the object of its crea-
ton, was about to cut Il canal divert
ing the waters of the stream from its
original channel. The owner Of
plantation which would be affected,
enjOincd an opening of the canal,
on the ground, among other things,
that the diversion of the stream was
IL violation of the conditions OH which
the State was admitted to the Union
originally, and that the State was
therefore without power to authorize
it to be done. Our State Supreme Court
go Miss, p. y decided that such CON
ditiOns in the act of admission were
invalid, and this decision was affirm
ed by the Supreme Court of the
United States, as shown by its report
in 90 Howard.
In its decision the Supreme Court
Of the United States asserted that ev-
cry material question involved had
been previously decided by that tri-
bunal in case that came up to that
court from Alabama, and they say
with emphasis that Congress is with
out power to impose conditions on
the admission Of new States This
Alabama case is in 3 Howard Reports,
and we there learn that the cession of
the territory constituting Alabama
and Mississippi made by Georgia, the
deed so to speak by which the United
States owned this section of country,
and which is contract, prOvid-
ed, by the adoption of certain
sections of the Virginia cesson,
that as soon as the population
was sufficient the territory should he
created into State or States, whjch
should be received into the Union up0n
a perfect equality rih tie thirteen orig
indl States.
If this was good law as settled by
the Supreme Court of the United
before the war, it is good law now,
and it seems Mississippi has all the
power over the suffrage question that
New York or Massachusetts has, and
that the conditions of the act of Con
gress referred to are not barriers to
solution of our difficulties.