Year: 1867




AS the compass to the mariner, so is
the eSupreme Court of the United States
the sure guide to the people upon car
dnal questions OF right Three weeks
ago that tribunal pronounced deci.
sion which has been well character
lied as new declaration of rights.
By it that palladium of personal lib.
crty, trial by jury, was rescued from
its enemies and restored to its proper
place in the temple of justice. Here
after the citizen will be secure in his
life, liberty and property from the
arbitrary power of military commits
sions. Martial law, with its attendant
horrors, can find no shelter or protec.
tion under the Constitution Of the
United States. But still more odious
tyranny than that of military com
missions had been imposed upon the
people of the United States by the
Congressional test oath of July, 1862,
and upon the people of Maryland and
of Missouri by their respective State
Constitutions. These cunningly de-
vised provisions excluded men from
holding Offices of honor, profit, or
trust, or from practicing as attorneys
at law, from exercising the office of
preacher or teacher, and from the
right of voting unless they purged
themselves by most searching oaths,
not only in regard TO acts previously
denounced by the laws of the land as
criminal, but for the utterance Of their
opinions and sympathies, making no
distinction between the spontaneous
affections of the heart and those de-
liberate acts of malignity and opposi-
tion TO the known law which are alone
recognized by civilized nations as
proper subjects for punishment. Had
the validity of such provisions been
recognized by the Supreme Court,
there would practically have been
little reliefto the public by the declara-
tion that the citizen was entitled to
trial by jury.


The decision pronounced on the
18th instant upon the validity of test
oaths is complete and searching ex-
position of their enoTmity. They are
shown to be sweeping bills of pains
and penalties, bills of attainder IL their
most comprehensive form, et post
fdcto laws within the plain provision
of the Constitution Of the United
States, and had limitations of most
cruel penal laws enacted in England
in the reign of Henry VIII, William
III and George III. No well-inform-
ed man could doubt, what the court
so explicitly asserts, that any law
which, whether through the subter-
fuge of an cxpurgatory oath or the
more open form of trial and convic-
ton and sentence, disqualifcs or de-
prives q man of rights for past con-
duct, is a punishment, and cannot
be otherwise defined; and as such,
comes expressly within the prohibit
tion of the Constitution against any
State passing any bill of attainder or
er post fdcto law. There can be no
evasion of the Constitution By the
way in which the power is exercised.
No matter whether il bo in the form
of provision in State constitution
disqualifying party from holding
office or in an act Of the Legislature,
whether effected by an expurgatory
oath or by sentence Of court, the
consequence is the same, the violation
of Justice equally fragrant, the inva-
sion of the civil right of citizen
equally palpable and indefcnsible.
Moreover, any expurgatory oath
which operates substantially as a
means of punishment is a violation of
the Constitutional provision securing
to every man the right of trial by
jury.


This decision of the Supreme Court
happens most opportunely. 1t covers
precisely the disqualiying clauses of
the constitution Of our own State,
which have operated so oppressivcly
and uniustly upon our people.
II would be strange spectacle if, after
this adjudication, any one should
seriously undertake TO defend the
policy or the legality of provisions
which were adopted by men in the
haste of passion, amid the excitements
of war, and which now, after two cx-
haustive arguments by the most emf
nent counsel in the land, and after
whole year of anxious deliberation,
with the full consciousness of their
responsibility, the Supreme Court has
so emphatically condemned, and con-
demned alike in the States and in the
Federal Government. There can be
no qualification or restriction upon
rights which lie at the foundation of
those liberties and privileges which
were vindicated once for all by
the American revolution, and only
proclaimed for greater certainty in
the original State constitutions and in
the Federal bond of Union. If this is
and ought to be indissoluble, the
rights il was meant TO secure should
be sacred from every stain. Nor
should so hagrant an invasion of the
privileges of citizens be suffered TO
remain uncondemned by their repre-
sentatives one hour after the Supreme
Court has pronounced against its va
lidity Baltimore Sun.





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