The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1907-1917, 1917-07-12
CONTINUED FROM PAGE ONE. J

because the old Confederation was restricted
to calling upon the States for troops whereas
the new government was to be unfettered, and
could directly raise armies, by reason of the
authority vested In itself.
A transfer of power does not necessarily
IMPLY an enlargement thereof.
A parental power, for instance, may be
transferred from the father, who is unfit, to a
guardian, who is fit-but the parental power
remains the same.
When the control of commerce and of
money, etc, were taken away from the States,
and transferred to the Federal Government.
no essential change was made in the powers
themselves
1t must be apparent to everybody who has
studied the Constitution, that it did not set
out to create any new powers at all. It's
great purpose was to divide the existing pow
ers between The States and the Federal Gov
ernment in such a way as to make the
Federal Government independent and self
supporting, and at the same time, leave the
separate States in full possession of all those
sovereign powers which they had not volun
tarlly coded to the Federal Government.
Judge Jenkins quoted, from Elliott's De
bates, the language by Alexander Hamilton,
James Madison, John Marshal, Oliver Ellis
worth, and others, to prove that the Federal
Government was not restricted as to the
means to be employed to raise armies.
II those quotations authorize CONSUMPTION
at all, they contemplate that measure as the
last resort to repel the invader, who has ac-
tually attacked us upon our own soil.
Judge Jenkins alludes to the fact that
James Monroe, when Secretary of War in
1871, recommended plan for the increase of
the Army involving compulsory enrolment;
| have searched in vain, in Benton's Abridce-
ment of the debates, for the arguments pro
and con, but the fact remains that Congress
refused to adopt the recommendation. al
though the friends Of Mr.. Monroe had an
overwhelming majority in both Houses
So much for the Georgia decision.
Now let us see what the new law actually
IS, and whether it can be reconciled to that
Supreme Law which Congress has no au-
thorlty to infringe, and which cannot be
changed, unless three fourths of the States
act favorably upon the proposed alteration.
In the first place, / submit to the legal fra
ternity, and to the country, that the new laws
of CONSUMPTION absolutely nullify the Thir-
teenth Amendment.
BY the Consumption Act, the government
is given power to seize the free citizen black
or white, and put him to work, on the farm,
in the mine, in the mill, or on the railroad.
Under that law, a system of involuntary
servitude is provided for; the government is
given authority to seize the black man and
put him back into virtual slavery
Under that law, the President is given
power to seize the free white man. and to re-
duce him to a state of serfage.
1t would be possible for arbitrary officials
to compel poor white men to work for rich
negroes; it would be possible to seize upon
the Southern "white trash" as our poor folks
are contemptuously called by certain aristo-
Gratis of the North, and to make those white
men of the South, labor in the coal fields of