Live Oak daily Democrat. (Live Oak, Fla.) 190?-190?, 1906-09-07

CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT
Senator Elect From Escambia County
Proposes to Stir Up
Hornets Nest
Jacksonville Metropolis }


State Senator John S. Beard, of
Escambia county, will, II he carries
out his promises, not only create a
sensation during the next Legislature
but his name will be known all over
this country, and he will have enough
free advertising to last him for the
rest of his days.
Mr.. Beard will attack the fifteenth
amendment of the constitution of the
United States, and in his contentious
he is said to be Endorsed by several
constitutional lawyers, prominent
among whom is Hoke Smith, the
next Governor of Georgia. The Pen
saeola News in speaking of Mr..
Boards plans says:
'Mr. Beard has for several years
been looking up the statutes of the
legality of the fifteenth amendment
to the constitution. Of the United
States, and has had the legal opinion
of some of the ablest constitutional
lawyers in our State and has his brief
in such stage that he will be able
to introduce a measure in the next
State Senate, of which he is a mem
Der, depriying the negro of the right
to vote. This, OF course, will be to
make test case before the Supreme
Court of the United States, and from
the preponderanee of authority al
ready on hand by that Supreme body
Mr.. Beard believes that the decision
will be in favor of the annullment of
the fifteenth constitutional amend
ment.
The amendment reads as follows:
Z" The right of citizens of the
United States to vote shall not be
denied or abridged by the United
States, or any State, on account of
race, color or previous condition or
serVitud0."
This amendment if annulled
would put the negro on a plane with
the Chinaman, japanese, Mexican or
Indian, in that he would be debarred
from voting.
Mr.. Beard, who has given this
subject much thought and delving
claims that the Supreme Court has
already decided in a test case that
the seeding States were never leg
ally out of the Union; while they re-
belled, they were in point of fact still
component parts of the Union"
This being conceded by the court,
Mr.. Beard contends that as there
were no members present from the
South the constitutional amendment
was not legally passed, as the consti-
tuition requires that any amendment
must be passed by a two-thirds vote
of both houses of the National Con-
gress and ratified by three-fourths of
the States.
Mr.. Beard, therefore, contends
that as the South at the time Con
gress passed the bill proposing this
fifteenth amendment had no repre-
sentation whatever in Congress, and
that as it never went out of the
Union, as the Supreme Court has de-
cided, they were entitled TO this re-
presentation, and no law was valid
without a majority vote, and no law
proposing an amendment to the ma
tional constitution valid or binding
unless it received the vote of two
thirds of both houses, including the
representation of the seeding States.
Mr.. Beard further contends that
the journal of the national house
shows that not two-thirds are re-
corded as being present the day this
amendment was passed, but that it
was rushed through on a viva Yoce
vote, clear violation of the eonsti-
tuition itself. In addition, it required
three-fourths of the State Legisla-