To what

registration extended?

given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof, is entitled to be regis. tered or to vote; and the words 'executive or judicial office in any State' in said oath mentioned shall be construed to include all civil offices created by law for the administration of any general law of a State, or for the administration of justice.

"7. The time for completing the original registration provided for time is the in said act may, in the discretion of the commander of any district, be extended to the first day of October, eighteen hundred and sixty-seven; and the boards of registration shall have power, and it shall be their duty, commencing fourteen days prior to any election under said act, and upon reasonable public notice of the time and place thereof, to revise, for a period of five days, the registration lists, and upon being satisfied that any person not entitled thereto has been registered, to strike the name of such person from the list, and such person shall not be allowed to vote. And such board shall also, during the same period, add to such registry the names of all persons who at that same time possess the qualifications required by said act who have not been already registered; and no person shall, at any time, be entitled to be registered, or to vote, by reason of any executive pardon or ainnesty, for any act or thing which, without such pardon or amnesty, would disqualify him from registration or voting.

What are

the powers of the command

"8. Section four of said last-named act shall be construed to authorize the commanding general named therein, whenever he shall deem it needful, to remove any member of a board of regising general? tration, and to appoint another in his stead, and to fill any vacancy in such board.

What oath is

the board?

"9. All members of said boards of registration and all persons required of hereafter elected or appointed to office in said military districts, under any so-called State or municipal authority, or by detail or appointment of the district commanders, shall be required to take and to subscribe the oath of office prescribed by law for officers of the United States.

By whose opinions are the district

"10. No district commander or member of the board of registration, or any of the officers or appointees acting under them, shall be bound in his action by any opinion of any civil officer of the commanders United States.

bound?

What meant

"11. All the provisions of this act, and of the acts to which this is supplementary, shall be construed liberally to the end that all the intents thereof may be fully and perfectly carried out." Passed over the President's veto, 19th July, 1867.

"JOINT RESOLUTION to carry into effect the several acts providing for the more efficient government of the rebel States.

"Be it resolved, &c., That, for the purpose of carrying into effect the above named acts, there be appropriated, out of any money in the treasury not otherwise appropriated, the sum of one million dollars."

Passed over the President's veto, 19th July, 1867.

277. It will be seen that the second section of the fourteenth the second amendment only contemplated the rejection from the basis of representation of the "numbers," whose male representative men should be denied the elective franchise. This applied especially to the free

section of

the amendment?

The reconstruction acts ad- What is the

17.

persons of color. Upon the estimate of four and a half mil- 21, 23. lions of those, very few of whom are allowed to vote, unless the rule of suffrage should be changed, nearly one-eighth of the whole representation would have to be deducted. Nearly all of this would, in fact, fall upon the late slave States, and the greater part upon the remaining ten rebel States. vance one step further. They still recognize the principle that the effect of suffrage States may determine for themselves who of their inhabitants may to the vote; but, as in the case of Nebraska, it is imposed "as a funda- negroes? mental condition of admission" that these States shall make no distinction, as to the right of suffrage, on account of color. While, then, it was intended to enforce the adoption of the constitutional amendment, if the law imposed the burden of negro suffrage, it also secured to the unwilling whites the benefit of the increased representation which would have been lost without this principle. While the means adopted have been denounced as onerous, and the executive and judicial departments of the government have been appealed to to arrest them, the candid historian will have to record, that the object of this legislation has been to secure the fourteenth amendment to the Constitution. And, viewed as a revolution in organic law, superinduced by the mighty events which preceded, the friends and the opponents of the measure will have to be judged, By what as they are being judged in regard to the thirteenth amendment, rule will by the question of whether it was right, expedient and wise thus to secure the fruits of the victory which prevented the destruction nents have of the Union? If the end shall be approved, the severities of the to be judged? war and the great loss of property, in the one case, and the complaints of the unfortunate men, who fought against a beneficent 275. government, in the other, will be forgotten.

275.

the friends and oppo

278. Under these laws the voters registered have been as fol- Compare the lows:

black and white vote?

In 1860, the white vote of the same States was about 652,000. But it is estimated that 300,000, who would have been voters, lost their lives by the civil war. Probably 100,000 were either excluded, under the acts of Congress, or else failed to register. And yet there seems to be a falling off of less than 10,000. The vote of West Virginia is also to be deducted from the vote of Virginia. The conventions have been carried and delegates elected in all the

17.

What do the amend

States except Texas. In that State an election has been ordered to take place on the 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th and 14th of February, 1868. The conventions of Alabama, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, and Arkansas have adopted the principle of suffrage for whites and blacks alike.

The new Constitutions will be submitted to the people for their ratification; and a bill has passed the House of Representatives, and may become a law, to secure the ratification by a simple majority of the votes cast; and to elect members of Congress at the same time. Should the Constitutions be ratified, and State officers elected under them, the contest may possibly then arise between the new governments thus organized and the governments intended to be superseded. But whatever form the controversy may assume, no candid mind should ever lose sight of the fact, that the great issue is, Shall the fourteenth amendment be ratified by those States not now allowed representation or not?

279. In view of so important an issue, it may be well for every reader to consider carefully what this amendment proposes or has ments pro- done? This may be answered thus:pose?

The first?

6, 19, 25, 28, 93, 163, 169,

220-223.

274.

SEC. 1. Defines national citizenship, and thus makes organic what had already been declared law by the first section of the Civil Rights Bill. Paschal's Annotated Digest, Art. 5382. See Farrar's Const. § 448.

All else in this section has already been guarantied in the second and fourth sections of the fourth article; and in the thirteen amend220-225, 245-ments. The new feature declared is that the general principles, which had been construed to apply only to the national government, are thus imposed upon the States. Most of the States, in general terms, had adopted the same bill of rights in their own constitutions.

260, 264.

The second?

21-24, 276.

17, 18, 220,

221.

effect of

280. The second section amends the third clause of the second section of the first article, so as to make representation depend upon voters as well as numbers. It thus more clearly defines who of those "persons," now "citizens," shall be counted in the basis of representation. Curtailment of representation will follow curtailment of suffrage. But the rights of the States to determine who What is the of their inhabitants shall vote seems still to be left unimpaired. This view, however, has been denied; and there are those of of suffrage? great weight, who claim that Congress has the power to prescribe an universal rule of suffrage for all the States. Putting it upon the 173, 174, 269. ground of a right still retained by the States and people, it is not probable that any State would long exclude a large class of voters at the expense of its weight of representation in the nation.l assembly and the electoral college. The prejudice against caste would be overcome by the necessity for strength.

curtailment

16-18.

18.

The third?

242, 276.

281. The third section contains a decree of exclusion from offiee, against all, everywhere, and for the past as well as future, who, having previously taken an oath as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to 221, 222, 215. support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged

in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.

One of the complaints against the reconstruction laws has been, What is the that this same disqualification has been extended to the right to effect of the disqualificavote upon all the measures of reconstruction; and that so large a tion? class has thus been excluded that "negro supremacy " has been established in all those ten States. It is no part of this book to defend or denounce any policy. The truth is, that the disqualifi- What percation did not and could not reach any voter under twenty-seven centage could it years of age; it could reach comparatively few below thirty-five; possibly and in no community is there an alarming number above fifty years reach? of age. Neither by statistical possibility nor by count, has it been found fairly to extend to one-tenth part of the population. Upon Attorney-General Stanbery's interpretation, one-twentieth would be much nearer the number. (Opinions upon the Reconstruction Laws, 1867.) It does, however, reach a class; and the disqualification would extend to future as well as to past rebellions, and the power of holding office, or disability could only be removed by a 16-18, 220– two-thirds vote of each house of Congress.

223.

277.

212.

And as the country seems to have settled down into the notion, 16-19, 35, 46, that the elective franchise and the qualification for office are 93, 169–171. powers, which always require something superadded to mere citizenship, the disqualification as an organic rule for the future becomes one of wisdom and sound policy. I say nothing of the argument that it is a punishment for past offenses against the efficacy 142, 143. of executive pardon. As the number of participants in past rebellions will daily decrease, let us hope that the love of office, the very strongest in the restless, ambitious spirits, who always control popular sentiment, may render it almost impossible that ever the section shall extend to others who shall hereafter engage in insurrection or rebellion against the United States.

117.

"STATE" in this section would doubtless be interpreted, as in the fugitive clauses, to extend to the District of Columbia and the Territories, and, indeed, to all who owed allegiance to the United 226, 215, 242. States, and had held an office within the category of those defined. And "PERSON" would receive the most comprehensive definition.

section?

282. The fourth section declares, that "the validity of the public What is the debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts in- fourth curred for the payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion shall not be questioned." While this has been supposed to relate to the debt contracted in the suppression of the late rebellion, it is, in fact, an organic pledge What debts for all debts contracted in the past and for the future. The debt is does it not only not to be repudiated, but "not questioned."

embrace? 78, S2. While so large a debt is thus intended to be secured, the section What debts further stipulates: "But neither the United States nor any State are stipulat. shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insured not to be paid? rection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations, and claims shall be held illegal and void."

What are the probable

The debt of the Confederate States could not have been less than two thousand millions of dollars; and the value of the slaves amounts?

78, 82.

The fifth?

138.

274.

What is the

of the subject?

274.

emancipated exceeded that sum. The debts incurrred by States, counties, corporations, and individuals in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, probably amount to a thousand millions more, to say nothing of pensions and "bounties for services," if one clause of the article is to be consulted in expounding the other. The terms of reconstruction prescribed by President Johnson required the States to repudiate their war debts. This has been done to a more or less limited extent in the constitutions and ordinances of the reconstruction conventions. But this is only for the protection of the States. Every one will judge for himself of the influence of such a debt, combined with the danger of having so large a national debt "questioned" or repudiated.

The problem of allowing the representations from States withdrawn from Congress and incurring such enormous debts of their own, while fighting the United States, an equal voice in reference to debts incurred by the nation in conquering them, is one of no small difficulty. Viewed from the stand-point of extraneous influences upon Congress, no one can now fully comprehend its danger. The organic guaranty is only an additional security.

283. The fifth section is little more than a repetition of the general powers of legislation. It is precisely the same expressed in the thirteenth amendment.

"The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article." The appropriato legislation which would arise under this article, would be governed by time and circumstances, just as all the other powers of Congress have been.

284. Whether this constitutional amendment has become, or importance shall become, a part of the organic law, as covenant for the great future, is a matter for the serious contemplation of the whole country. In the late very able message of the President, he recommends Congress to retrace the measures of the past. This cannot be understood to recommend the annulment of the thirteenth constitutional amendment. He is very explicit in opposing the reconstruction laws; and therefore he may be construed as recommending the repeal of the Civil Rights Bill, and opposing this whole fourteenth amendment, with no other recommen lation in its stead, than to allow the representation from the States elected since the acts of reconstruction, directed by the President himself. Few, if any, of these persons, could take the test oath now required of all. But whether this is to be repealed or to be regarded as obsolete, has not been very distinctly avowed by those who demand the admission of members from those States.

46, 242.

What may

285. It may not be out of place to observe, that, as the third be the effect section disqualifies a class from office, the principle of inclusio unius, of the third exclusio alterius, may remove the disability caused by the test oath section upon the test as to all not in that section enumerated. If this be so, those engaged in the late rebellion would gain rather than lose by the adoption of the amendment. Many leaders in that movement are not disqualified.

oath?

242.