Year: 1867


From Goodman laIiss-3 Southern start


The State GOVernme ents in the Southern


States Overthrow.


The decree has gone forth that the State
governments in ten of the southern States
are to be considered no longer as live politi-
cal communities. For all purposes Of leg
is alton they are as devoid of vitality as the
MAN who was entomhed in the days OF
Cheops Bv the operations of thst NEST in
iquitons bin which has Just passed both
Houses of Congress. the people of the South
are denied every political right, and practi
callv reduced 70 a state of slavery, which
can find naral4el Oulv in TIE oppression
which has been visited npon Ireland, and the
wrongs which have been heaped high as
Olympus upon unfortunate Poland We
are not to be recognized as having any rights
corresponding with lOvaI territories So
called. The idea is. excluded that we have
any right to be heard at all, until there are
States made out of the old territory, shaped
after the Congressional pattern The poiitl
cal community which made the State OF Mis-
sissippi is dissolved abrogated and wiped
out of existence None of its laws remain
10 force of their own authority; such as are
retained survive BY virtue of special recOg-
milton in this bill of denominations, We tax
it, that the constitutional government of the





pf the pen the most sacred provisions of the
Constitution of the United States those
which require each State to be represented
N Congress by It's senators and representa-
tives-are swept away with the bosom of de
structiOn. Our condition is worse by far
than if our State had been reduced to ter
ritOrial condition; we are reduced lower
than this, we are viewed as subjugatcd prov
inces, with no government but that of the
sword-with no law except the will of some
brainless military despot Such is the con
clusion to which the Radical majority of the
Thirty ninth Congress has come at last at
the end of its second session After this,
the sherif's process is to be suresreded by
the orders of some military satrap; the
peaceful visits of that officer is to be made to
give way before the tread of an armed sol
diery; the writ of hd6edS corpus Is virtualls
suspended, and the civil courts are superse
ded by military tribunals, and large mill
tary force is to be stationed IN each depart
ment to enable the officer in command OF
that department to have his authority en-
forced. We viii publish the bill in our mex
issue, that the reader can see its double
distilled enormities The liberty Of every
man in the South is invaded by the passage
of this bill-no mans house, no man pa
pers are secure against search and seizure.
a mans house was once deemed his castle,
into which not even the highest potentatein
the land could en- er-the sacred precincts
of which he dared not invade But not SO
now The honse can be seized if in the
judgment of the department commander it
is necessary, and its owner arrested and
held at the mercy of the Brigadier' domi
mating the department These are tremen-
dous strides towards the concentration Of all
powers in one huge centralized government
Loo
iouslv into each others fa es, and inquire,
What shall we do to be saved. The South
is not in condition to resist these invasions
of her rights-her arm is weak; she might
aim her weapons against her powerful an
tagonists, but they would fall ike the spear
darted by the feeble hand of Priam against
the shield of Pyrrhus.