Year: 1879

that the Fifteenth Amendment does MOI
confer the right Of suffrage upon any
one, but no good lawyer ever pretended
that it did The court has not decided
and will not, unless the State Sover-
eighty Bourkons should reconstruct il
by Iputting on the bench majority of
judicial blockheads, that the National
Constitution does not establish an cleo
toral Office and prescribe what citizens
in every State shall exercise that Office.
The first section calls into existence a
body of Representatives to represent
all the people composing the Nation in
a National Legislature. The second
section provides that this National As
sembly shall be composed of members
chosen by the people. BY this section
is created an electoral Office, the Office
of electing members of the National
Legislature. Is it State officer 1t Is
not created for State purpose, nor by
State Constitution, nor by State
law, nor by the people of State in any
way. 1t is created for National pur-
pose by the National Constitution. OBJ
viously it is National office-the Of
fee of National elector who
is to exercise it. Obviously the
person who exercises the Office
of National elector must be a
National elector. Who are the Ma
tional electorsP No State Constitution
tells us. No State law even hints of
their existence. But the same National
law that brings the office of National
electOr into existence informs us that
the National electors shall be in each
State those citizens having the qualiti-
oil of 40
most numerous branch of the State Leg
islature. The same persons are,clothed
with two oflices--that of State and
National electors. One is conferred by
the State Constitution; the other is con-
ferred by the National Constitution.
The exercise of the former it is the Of
flee of the State power to regulate and
protect, but the exercise of the latter it
is the Office of the National power to
regulate and protect, and the organs of
either power wickedly abdicate their
proper function if they do not fulfill
these essential objects of their exist
ence.


1t would be idle TO suppose that any
reactionary, State-sovereigntY Bourbon
can be persuaded to admit or made to
comprehend these very simple truths.
They are truths that make against the
old Bourbon dogma, and whoever
makes against that dogma of National
disintegration and death shall neither
be admitted nor permitted to stand.
This is the guiding spirit of the Confed-
crate moss-bacKs who have captured
the Capitol and are proceeding to tear
from the National statue-book what
ever comports not with the resolutions
of 1898 and the absurd political prem
ises of the great South Carolina nulli-
fer. The revolutionary programme
which demands the repeal of the Ma
tiOnal Election law under the menace
of starving the Government to death is
only first step in the new notification
movement which the so-called Demo-
cratic party, with the old Southern
bosses again at the front, proclaims by
its organs of opinion the purpose to
carry forward until it has torn the war
amendments from the Constitution and
trampled them in the mire. Every
postulate they have taken, every prOpo-
sition they have advanced, every argu-
ment they have offered, every speech
they have made, goes logically to that
end. 1t is a movement which inevita-
bly, reopens the old controversary be-
tween National unity and disintegra-
ton which the North has hoped the re-
suits of the war had terminated for
ever. 1t is the old contest between
ideas that go forward and ideas that go
backward; between the vigorous, intel
ligent modernism of a progressive
North and the fossilized BourbOnism of
a reactionary South. Chicago Times
lind. Dem.