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Date: Thu, 04 Dec 1997 04:47:02 -0800
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From: Paul Andrew Mitchell [address in tool bar]
Subject: SLS: America's subjection to Britain, in a nut shell -
includes new information (fwd)
<snip>
>
>years. In all that time no people who speak the English language
>have borne such servitude. It reduces the whole population of
>the ten States- all persons, of every color, sex and condition,
>and every stranger within their limits- to the most abject and
>degrading slavery. No master ever had a control so absolute over
>the slaves as this bill gives to the military officers over both
>white and colored persons...."
> "I come now to a question which is, if possible, still more
>important. Have we the power to establish and carry into
>execution a measure like this? I answer, 'Certainly not', if we
>derive our authority from the Constitution and if we are bound by
>the limitations which is imposes."....
> "...The Constitution also forbids the arrest of the citizen
>without judicial warrant, founded on probable cause. This bill
>authorizes an arrest without warrant, at pleasure of a military
>commander. The Constitution declares that 'no person shall be
>held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime unless
>on presentment of a grand jury'. This bill holds ever person not
>a soldier answerable for all crimes and all charges without any
>presentment. The Constitution declares that 'no person shall be
>deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of
>law'. This bill sets aside all process of law, and makes the
>citizen answerable in his person and property to the will of one
>man, and as to his life to the will of two. Finally, the
>Constitution declares that 'the privilege of the writ of habeas
>corpus shall not be suspended unless when, in case of rebellion
>or invasion, the public safety may require it'; whereas this bill
>declares martial law (which of itself suspends this great writ)
>in time of peace, and authorizes the military to make the arrest,
>and gives to the prisoner only one privilege, and that is trial
>'without unnecessary delay'. He has no hope of release from
>custody, except the hope, such as it is, of release by acquittal
>before a military commission."
> "The United States are bound to guarantee to each State a
>republican form of government. Can it be pretended that this
>obligation is not palpably broken if we carry out a measure like
>this, which wipes away every vestige of republican government in
>ten States and puts the life, property, and honor of all people
>in each of them under domination of a single person clothed with
>unlimited authority?"
> "....,here is a bill of attainder against 9,000,000 people
>at once. It is based upon an accusation so vague as to be
>scarcely intelligible and found to be true upon no credible
>evidence. Not one of the 9,000,000 was heard in his own defense.
>The representatives of the doomed parties were excluded from all
>participation in the trial. The conviction is to be followed by
>the most ignominious punishment ever inflicted on large messes of
>men. It disfranchises them by hundreds of thousands and degrades
>them all, even those who are admitted to be guiltless, from the
>rank of freeman to the condition of slaves."
>Veto Message of President Johnson, March 2, 1867
>
>
>Reconstruction Act of March 2, 1867
>
>RECONSTRUCTION ACT OF THIRTY-NINTH CONGRESS
>
>
>>From Twenty Years of Congress: From Lincoln to Garfield.
>
>With a review of the events which led to the political revolution
>of 1860, by James G. Blaine. Vol. II, pp. 681-682.
>
>An Act to provide for the more efficient government of the rebel
>states.
>
> "Whereas no legal State governments or adequate protection
>for life or property now exist in the rebel States of Virginia,
>North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama,
>Louisiana, Florida, Texas, and Arkansas; and whereas it is
>necessary that peace and good order should be enforced in said
>States until loyal and republican State governments can be
>legally established: Therefore."
>
> "Be it enacted, That said rebel States shall be divided
>into military districts and made subject to the military
>authority of the United States, as hereinafter prescribed, and
>for that purpose Virginia shall constitute the first district;
>North Carolina and South Carolina the second district; Georgia,
>Alabama, and Florida the third district; Mississippi and Arkansas
>the fourth district; and Louisiana and Texas the fifth district."
>
>Sec. 2. "That it shall be the duty of the President to assign to
>the command of each of said districts an officer of the army, not
>below the rank of brigadier-general, and to detail a sufficient
>military force to enable such officer to perform his duties and
>enforce his authority within the district to which he is
>assigned."
>
>Sec. 3. "That it shall be the duty of each officer assigned as
>aforesaid to protect all persons in their rights of person and
>property, to suppress insurrection, disorder, and violence, and
>to punish, or cause to be punished, all disturbers of the public
>peace and criminals, and to this end he may allow local civil
>tribunals to take jurisdiction of and to try offenders, or, when
>in his judgment it may be necessary for the trial of offenders,
>he shall have power to organize military commissions or tribunals
>for that purpose; and all interference under color of State
>authority with the exercise of military authority under this act
>shall be null and void."
>
>Sec. 4. "That all persons put under military arrest by virtue of
>this act shall be tried without unnecessary delay, and no cruel
>or unusual punishment shall be inflicted; and no sentence of any
>military commission or tribunal hereby authorized, affecting the
>life or liberty of any person, shall be executed until it is
>approved by the officer in command of the district, and the laws
>and regulations for the government of the army shall not be
>affected by this act, except in so far as they conflict with its
>provisions:
>
> "Provided, That no sentence of death under the provisions of
>this act shall be carried into effect without the approval of the
>President."
>
>Sec. 5."That when the people of any one of said rebel States
>shall have formed a constitution of government in conformity with
>the Constitution of the United States in all respects, framed by
>a convention of delegates elected by the male citizens of said
>State twenty-one years old and upward, of whatever race, color,
>or previous condition, who have been resident in said State for
>one year previous to the day of such election, except such as may
>be disfranchised for participation in the rebellion, or for
>felony at common law, and when such constitution shall provide
>that the elective franchise shall be enjoyed by all such persons
>as have the qualifications herein stated for electors of
>delegates, and when such constitution shall be ratified by a
>majority of the persons voting on the question of ratification
>who are qualified as electors for delegates, and when such
>constitution shall have been submitted to Congress for
>examination and approval, and Congress shall have approved the
>same, and when said State, by a vote of its legislature elected
>under said constitution, shall have adopted the amendment to the
>Constitution of the United States, proposed by the Thirty-Ninth
>Congress, and known as a targe."
>
> "After Ten Amend article fourteen, and when said article
>shall have become a part of the Constitution of the United
>States, said State shall be declared entitled to representation
>in Congress, and Senators and Representatives shall be admitted
>therefrom on their taking the oaths prescribed by law, and then
>and thereafter the preceding sections of this act shall be
>inoperative in said State:
>
> "Provided, That no person excluded from the privilege of
>holding office by said proposed amendment to the Constitution of
>the United States shall be eligible to election as a member of
>the convention to frame a constitution for any of said rebel
>States, nor shall any such person vote for members of such
>convention."
>
>Sec. 6."That until the people of said rebel states shall be by
>law admitted to representation in the Congress of the United
>States, any civil governments which may exist therein shall be
>deemed provisional only, and in all respects subject to the
>paramount authority of the United States at any time to abolish,
>modify, control, or supersede the same; and in all elections to
>any office under such provisional governments all persons shall
>be entitled to vote, and none others, who are entitled to vote
>under the provisions of the fifth section of this act; and no
>person shall be eligible to any office under any such provisional
>governments who would be disqualified from holding office under
>the provisions of the third article of said constitutional
>amendment."
>
>
>Reconstruction Act of March 23, 1867
>
>SUPPLEMENTARY RECONSTRUCTION ACT OF FORTIETH CONGRESS.
>
>>From Twenty Years of Congress: From Lincoln to Garfield.
>
>With a review of the events which led to the political revolution
>of 1860, by James G. Blaine. Vol. II, pp. 682-685.
>
>An Act supplementary to an act entitled
>
> An act to provide for the more efficient government of the
>rebel states, passed March second, eighteen hundred and
>sixty-seven, and to facilitate restoration.
>
>
> "Be it enacted, That before the first day of September,
>eighteen hundred and sixty-seven, the commanding general in each
>district defined by an act entitled."
>
> "An Act to provide for the more efficient government of the
>rebel States, passed March second, eighteen hundred and
>sixty-seven, shall cause a registration to be made of the male
>citizens of the United States, twenty-one years of age and
>upwards, resident in each county or parish in the State or States
>included in his district, which registration shall include only
>those persons who are qualified to vote for delegates by the act
>aforesaid, and who shall have taken and subscribed the following
>oath or affirmation: "I, _____, do solemnly swear, (or affirm,)
>in the presence of Almighty God, that I am a citizen of the State
>of _____; that I have resided in said State for _____ months next
>preceding this day, and now reside in the county of _____, or the
>parish of _____, in said State, (as the case may be;) that I am
>twenty-one years old; that I have not been disfranchised for
>participation in any rebellion or civil war against the United
>States, nor for felony committed against the laws of any State or
>of the United States; that I have never been a member of any
>State legislature, nor held any executive or judicial office in
>any State and afterwards engaged in insurrection or rebellion
>against the United States, or given aid or comfort to the enemies
>thereof; that I have never taken an oath as a member of Congress
>of the United States, 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 support the Constitution of the
>United States, and afterwards engaged in insurrection or
>rebellion against the United States or given aid or comfort to
>the enemies thereof; that I will faithfully support the
>Constitution and obey the laws of the United States, and will, to
>the best of my ability, encourage others so to do, so help me
>God;" which oath or affirmation may be administered by any
>registering officer."
>
>Sec. 2. "That after the completion of the registration hereby
>provided for in any State, at such time and places therein as the
>commanding general shall appoint and direct, of which at least
>thirty days' public notice shall be given, an election shall be
>held of delegates to a convention for the purpose of establishing
>a constitution and civil government for such state loyal to the
>Union, said convention in each State, except Virginia, to consist
>of the same number of members as the most numerous branch of the
>State legislature of such State in the year eighteen hundred and
>sixty, to be apportioned among the several districts, counties,
>or parishes of such State by the commanding general, giving to
>each representation in the ratio of voters registered as
>aforesaid, as nearly as may be. The convention in Virginia shall
>consist of the same number of members as represented the
>territory now constituting Virginia in the most numerous branch
>of the legislature of said State in the year eighteen hundred and
>sixty, to be apportioned as aforesaid."
>
>Sec. 3. "That at said election the registered voters of each
>State shall vote for or against a convention to form a
>constitution therefor under this act. Those voting in favor of
>such a convention shall have written or printed on the ballots by
>which they vote for delegates, as aforesaid, the words "For a
>convention," and those voting against such a convention shall
>have written or printed on such ballots the words "Against a
>convention." The person appointed to superintend said election,
>and to make return of the votes given thereat, as herein
>provided, shall count and make return of the votes given for and
>against a convention; and the commanding general to whom the same
>shall have been returned shall ascertain and declare the total
>vote in each State for and against a convention. If a majority of
>the votes given on that question shall be for a convention, then
>such convention shall be held as hereinafter provided; but if a
>majority of said votes shall be against a convention, then no
>such convention shall be held under this act:
>
> "Provided, That such convention shall not be held unless a
>majority of all such registered voters shall have voted on the
>question of holding such convention."
>
>Sec. 4. "That the commanding general of each district shall
>appoint as many boards of registration as may be necessary,
>consisting of three loyal officers or persons, to make and
>complete the registration, superintend the election, and make
>return to him of the votes, lists of voters, and of the persons
>elected as delegates by a plurality of the votes cast at said
>election; and upon receiving said returns he shall open the same,
>ascertain the persons elected as delegates according to the
>returns of the officers who conducted said election, and make
>proclamation thereof; and if a majority of the votes given
>on that question shall be for a convention, the commanding
>general, within sixty days from the date of election, shall
>notify the delegates to assemble in convention, at a time and
>place to be mentioned in the notification, and said convention,
>when organized, shall proceed to frame a constitution and civil
>government according to the provisions of this act and the act to
>which is it supplementary; and when the same shall have been so
>framed, said constitution shall be submitted by the convention
>for ratification to the persons registered under the provisions
>of this act at an election to be conducted by the officers or
>persons appointed or to be appointed by the commanding general,
>as hereinbefore provided, and to be held after the expiration of
>thirty days from the date of notice thereof, to be given by said
>convention; and the returns thereof shall be made to the
>commanding general of the district."
>
>Sec. 5. "That if, according to said returns, the constitution
>shall be ratified by a majority of the votes of the registered
>electors qualified as herein specified, cast at said election,
>(at least one half of all the registered voters voting upon the
>question of such ratification,) the president of the convention
>shall transmit a copy of the same, duly certified, to the
>President of the United States, who shall forthwith transmit the
>same to Congress, if then in session, and if not in session,
>then immediately upon its next assembling; and if it shall,
>moreover, appear to Congress that the election was one at which
>all the registered and qualified electors in the State had an
>opportunity to vote freely and without restraint, fear, or the
>influence of fraud, and if the Congress shall be satisfied that
>such constitution meets the approval of a majority of all the
>qualified electors in the State, and if the said constitution
>shall be declared by Congress to be in conformity with the
>provisions of the act to which this is supplementary, and the
>other provisions of said act shall have been complied with, and
>the said constitution shall be approved by Congress, the State
>shall be declared entitled to representation, and Senators and
>Representatives shall be admitted therefrom as therein provided."
>
>Sec. 6. "That all elections in the States mentioned in the said
>"Act to provide for the more efficient government of the rebel
>States," shall, during the operation of said act, be by ballot;
>and all officers making the said registration of voters and
>conducting said elections shall, before entering upon the
>discharge of their duties, take and subscribe the oath prescribed
>by the oath 1862 act approved July second, eighteen hundred and
>sixty-two, entitled "An act to prescribe an oath of office:"
>
> "Provided, That if any person shall knowingly and falsely
>take and subscribe any oath in this act prescribed, such person
>so offending and being thereof duly convicted, shall be subject
>to the pains, penalties, and disabilities which by law are
>provided for the punishment of the crime of wilful and corrupt
>perjury."
>
>Sec. 7. "That all expenses incurred by the several commanding
>generals, or by virtue of any orders issued, or appointments
>made, by them, under or by virtue of this act, shall be paid out
>of any moneys in the treasury not otherwise appropriated."
>
>Sec. 8. "That the convention for each State shall prescribe the
>fees, salary, and compensation to be paid to all delegates and
>other officers and agents herein authorized or necessary to carry
>into effect the purposes of this act not herein otherwise
>provided for, and shall provide for the levy and collection of
>such taxes on the property in such State as may be necessary to
>pay the same."
>
>Sec. 9. "That the word article, in the sixth section of the act
>to which this is supplementary, shall be construed to mean
>section."
>
>
>Reconstruction Act of July 19, 1867
>
>SUPPLEMENTARY RECONSTRUCTION ACT OF JULY 19, 1867.
>
>>From Twenty Years of Congress: From Lincoln to Garfield.
>With a review of the events which led to the political revolution
>of 1860, by James G. Blaine. Vol. II, pp. 685-687.
>
> "An Act supplementary to an act entitled An Act to provide
>for the more efficient government of the rebel states, passed on
>the second day of March, 1867, and the act supplementary
>thereto, passed on the 23d day of March, 1867."
>
> "Be it enacted, That it is hereby declared to have been the
>true intent and meaning of the act of the 2d day of March, 1867,
>entitled "An act to provide for the more efficient government of
>the rebel States," and of the act supplementary thereto, passed
>on the 23d day of March, 1867, that the governments then existing
>in the rebel States of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina,
>Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Florida, Texas, and
>Arkansas, were not legal State governments; and that thereafter
>said governments, if continued, were to be continued subject in
>all respects to the military commanders of the respective
>districts, and to the paramount authority of Congress."
>
>Sec. 2."That the commander of any district named in said act
>shall have power, subject to the disapproval of the General of
>the army of the United States, and to have effect till
>disapproved, whenever in the opinion of such commander the proper
>administration of said act shall require it, to suspend or remove
>from office, or from the performance of official duties and the
>exercise of official powers, any officer or person holding or
>exercising, or professing to hold or exercise, any civil or
>military office or duty in such district under any power,
>election, appointment, or authority derived from, or granted by,
>or claimed under, any so-called State or the government thereof,
>or any municipal or other division thereof; and upon such
>suspension or removal such commander, subject to the disapproval
>of the General as aforesaid, shall have power to provide from
>time to time for the performance of the said duties of such
>officer or person so suspended or removed, by the detail of some
>competent officer or soldier of the army, or by the appointment
>of some other person to perform the same, and to fill vacancies
>occasioned by death, resignation, or otherwise."
>
>Sec. 3. "That the General of the army of the United States shall
>be invested with all the powers of suspension, removal,
>appointment, and detail granted in the preceding section to
>district commanders."
>
>Sec. 4. "That the acts of the officers of the army already done
>in removing in said districts persons exercising the functions of
>civil officers, and appointing others in their stead, are hereby
>confirmed: Provided, That any person heretofore or hereafter
>appointed by any district commander to exercise the functions of
>any civil office, may be removed either by the military officer
>in command of the district, or by the General of the army. And it
>shall be the duty of such commander to remove from office, as
>aforesaid, all persons who are disloyal to the Government of the
>United States, or who use their official influence in any manner
>to hinder, delay, prevent, or obstruct the due and proper
>administration of this act and the acts to which it is
>supplementary."
>
>Sec. 5."That the boards of registration provided for in the act
>entitled "An act supplementary to an act entitled 'An act to
>provide for the more efficient government of the rebel States,'
>passed March 2, 1867, and to facilitate restoration," passed
>March 23, 1867, shall have power, and it shall be their duty,
>before allowing the registration of any person, to ascertain,
>upon such facts or information as they can obtain, whether such
>person is entitled to be registered under said act, and the oath
>required by said act shall not be conclusive on such question,
>and no person shall be registered unless such board shall decide
>that he is entitled thereto; and such board shall also have power
>to examine, under oath, (to be administered by any member of such
>board,) any one touching the qualification of any person claiming
>registration; but in every case of refusal by the board to
>register an applicant, and in every case of striking his name
>from the list as hereinafter provided, the board shall make a
>note or memorandum, which shall be returned with the registration
>list to the commanding general of the district, setting forth the
>grounds of such refusal or such striking from the list:
>
> "Provided, That no person shall be disqualified as member of
>any board of registration by reason of race or color."
>
>Sec. 6. "That the true intent and meaning of the oath prescribed
>in said supplementary act is, (among other things,) that no
>person who has been a member of the Legislature of any State, or
>who has held any executive or judicial office in any State,
>whether he has taken an oath to support the Constitution of the
>United States or not, and whether he was holding such office at
>the commencement of the rebellion, or had held it before, and who
>has afterwards engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the
>United States, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof, is
>entitled to be registered 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."
>
>sec. 7. "That the time for completing the original registration
>provided for in said act may, in the discretion of the commander
>of any district, be extended to the 1st day of October, 1867; 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 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
>amnesty, for any act or thing which, without such pardon or
>amnesty, would disqualify him from registration or voting."
>
>Sec. 8. "That 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 registration and to appoint another in his stead, and to
>fill any vacancy in such board."
>
>Sec. 9. "That all members of said boards of registration, and all
>persons 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. I am not sure that
>this is the oath intended here."
>
>Sec. 10. "That 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 United States."
>
>Sec. 11. "That 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."
>
>
>Reconstruction Act of March 11, 1868
>
>AMENDATORY RECONSTRUCTION ACT OF MARCH 11, 1868
>
>>From Twenty Years of Congress: From Lincoln to Garfield.
>
>With a review of the events which led to the political revolution
>of 1860, by James G. Blaine. Vol. II, p. 687.
>
> "An Act to amend the act passed March 23, 1867, entitled An
>Act supplementary to 'An act to provide for the more efficient
>government of the rebel states,' passed March 2, 1867, and to
>facilitate their restoration."
>
> "Be it enacted, That hereafter any election authorized by
>the act passed March 23, 1867, entitled "An Act supplementary to
>'An act to provide for the more efficient government of the rebel
>states,' passed March 2, 1867, and to facilitate their
>restoration," shall be decided by a majority of the votes
>actually cast; and at the election in which the question of the
>adoption or rejection of any constitution is submitted, any
>person duly registered in the State may vote in the election
>district where he offers to vote when he has resided therein for
>ten days next preceding such election, upon presentation of his
>certificate of registration, his affidavit, or other satisfactory
>evidence, under such regulations as the district commanders may
>prescribe."
>
>Sec. 2. "That the constitutional convention of any of the States
>mentioned in the acts to which this is amendatory may provide
>that at the time of voting upon the ratification of the
>constitution, the registered voters may vote also for members of
>the House of Representatives of the United States, and for all
>elective officers provided for by the said constitution; and the
>same election officers, who shall make the returns of the votes
>cast on the ratification or rejection of the constitution, shall
>enumerate and certify the votes cast for members of Congress."
>
>ONCE THE JUDICIARY DECIDED TO LOOK THE OTHER WAY, THE DE JURE
>CONSTITUTION'S DAYS WERE NUMBERED.
>
> "As a result of these decisions, enforcement of the
>Reconstruction Act against the Southern States, helpless to
>resist military rule without aid of the judiciary, went forward
>unhampered. Puppet governments were founded in these various
>States under military auspices. Through these means the adoption
>of new state constitutions, conforming to the requirements of
>Congress, was accomplished. Likewise, one by one, these puppet
>state governments ratified the Fourteenth Amendment, which their
>more independent predecessors had rejected. Finally, in July
>1868, the ratifications of this amendment by the puppet
>governments of seven of the ten Southern States, including
>Louisiana, gave more than the required ratification by three-
>fourths of the States, and resulted in a Joint Resolution adopted
>by Congress and a Proclamation by the Secretary of State, both
>declaring the Amendment ratified and in force." Tulane Law
>Review, The Dubious Origin Of The Fourteenth Amendment. page 36
>
> "How remote was this Hamiltonian concept from the events of
>1867 and 1888, when a "rump" Congress arrogated to itself the
>power to force ratification of a rejected amendment, coercing
>ratifications by several of the rejecting States." Tulane Law
>Review, The Dubious Origin Of The Fourteenth Amendment. page 26
>
> "The Act dealt with these Southern States, referred to as
>"rebel States" in its various provisions. It opened with a
>recital that "no legal State government" existed in these States.
>It placed these States under military rule. Louisiana and Texas
>were grouped together as the Fifth Military District, and placed
>under the domination of an army officer appointed by the
>President. All civilian authorities were placed under the
>dominant authority of the military government." Tulane Law
>Review, The Dubious Origin Of The Fourteenth Amendment.page 31
>
> "The most extreme and amazing feature of the Act was the
>requirement that each excluded State must ratify the Fourteenth
>Amendment, in order to again enjoy the status and rights of a
>State, including representation in Congress. Section 3 of the
>Act sets fourth this compulsive coercion thus imposed upon the
>Southern States." Tulane Law
>Review, The Dubious Origin Of The Fourteenth Amendment.page 32
>
> "Senator Doolittle of Wisconsin, a Northerner and a
>Conservative Republican. During the floor debate on the bill, he
>said:
> "My friend has said what has been said all around me, what
>is said every day: the people of the South have rejected the
>constitutional amendment, and therefore we will march upon them
>and force them to adopt it at the point of the bayonet, and
>establish military power over them until they do adopt it."
>Tulane Law Review, The Dubious Origin Of The Fourteenth
>Amendment.page 32
>
> "Whatever justification for other portions of the
>Reconstruction Act may or may not be found in this constitutional
>provision, there could clearly be no sort of a relationship
>between a guarantee to a State of "a republican form of
>government" and an abrogation of the basic and constitutional
>right of a State, in its legislative discretion, to make its own
>choice between ratification or rejection of a constitutional
>amendment proposal submitted to the state legislatures by the
>Congress of the United States. To deny to a State the exercise
>of this free choice between ratification and rejection, and to
>put the harshest sort of coercive pressure upon a State to compel
>ratification, was clearly a gross infraction--not and
>effectuation--of the constitutional guarantee of "a republican
>form of government." Tulane Law Review, The Dubious Origin Of The
>Fourteenth Amendment.page 37
>
> Madison said in Federalist No. 43:
>"....the authority extends no further than to a guaranty of a
>republican form government, which supposes a preexisting
>government of the form which is to be guaranteed. As long,
>therefore, as the existing republican forms are continued by the
>States, they are guaranteed by the federal Constitution.
>Whenever the States may choose to substitute other republican
>forms, they have a right to do so, and to claim the federal
>guaranty for the latter. The only restriction imposed on them is
>, that they shall not exchange republican for anti-republican
>Constitutions; a restriction which, it is presumed, will hardly
>be considered as a grievance." Tulane Law Review, The Dubious
>Origin Of The Fourteenth Amendment. page 38
>
> "Despite the fact that the southern States had been
>functioning peacefully for two years and had been counted to
>secure ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment , Congress
>passed the Reconstruction Act, which provided for the military
>occupation of 10 of the 11 southern States. It excluded Tennessee
>from military occupation and one must suspect it was because
>Tennessee had ratified the Fourteenth Amendment on July 7, 1866.
> The Act further disfranchised practically all white voters
>and provided that no Senator or Congressman from the occupied
>States could be seated in Congress until a new Constitution
>was adopted by each State which would be approved by Congress.
>The Act further provided that each of the 10 States was required
>to ratify the proposed Fourteenth Amendment and the Fourteenth
>Amendment must become a part of the Constitution of the United
>States before the military occupancy would cease and the States
>be allowed to have seats in Congress." Dyett v. Turner 439 p2d
>266 @ 269, 20 U2d 403
>
> Observing how 'a renegade group of men from the Northern
>States', MY NOTE in quotes, actual text in brackets (Congress)
>had taken the Constitution into its own hands and was proceeding
>in willful disregard of the Constitution, on the 15th of January,
>1868- Ohio, and then on March 24, 1868- New Jersey, voted to
>withdraw their prior ratifications and to reject.
>
> The following, is an excerpt from Joint Resolution No.1 of
>the State of New Jersey of March 24, 1868, when they rescinded
>their prior ratification and rejected:
> "It being necessary, by the Constitution, that every
>amendment to the same, should be proposed by two thirds of both
>Houses of Congress, the authors of said proposition, for the
>purpose of securing the assent of the requisite majority,
>determined to, and did, exclude from the said two Houses eighty
>representatives form eleven States of the Union, upon the
>pretence that there were no such States in the Union; but,
>finding that two-thirds of the remainder of said Houses could not
>be brought to assent to the said proposition, they deliberately
>formed and carried out the design of mutilating the integrity of
>the United States Senate, and without any pretext or
>justification, other than the possession of power, without the
>right and in palpable violation of the Constitution, ejected a
>member of their own body, representing this State, and thus
>practically denied to New Jersey its equal suffrage in the Senate
>and thereby nominally secured the vote of two-thirds of the said
>Houses."
> "The object of dismembering the highest representative
>assembly in the Nation, and humiliating a State of the Union,
>faithful at all times to all of its obligations, and the object
>of said amendment were one- to place new and unheard of powers in
>the hands of a faction, that it might absorb to itself all
>executive, judicial and legislative power, necessary to secure to
>itself immunity for the unconstitutional acts it had already
>committed, and those it has since inflicted on a too patient
>people."
> "The subsequent usurpation of these once national
>assemblies, in passing pretended laws for the establishment, in
>ten States, of martial law, which is nothing but the will of the
>military commander, and therefore inconsistent with the very
>nature of all law, for the purpose reducing to slavery men of
>their own race to those States, or compelling them, contrary to
>their own convictions, to exercise the elective franchise in
>obedience to dictation of a fraction in those assemblies; the
>attempt to commit to one man arbitrary and uncontrolled power,
>which they have found necessary to exercise to force the people
>of those States into compliance with their will; the authority
>given to the Secretary of War to use the name of the President,
>to countermand its President's order, and to certify military
>orders to be by the direction of the President' when they are
>notoriously known to be contrary to the President's direction,
>thus keeping up the forms of the Constitution to which the people
>are accustomed, but practically deposing the President from his
>office of Commander-in-Chief, and suppressing one of the great
>departments of the Government, that of the executive; the attempt
>to withdraw from the supreme judicial tribunal of the Nation the
>jurisdiction to examine and decide upon the conformity of their
>pretended laws to the Constitution, which was the Chief function
>of that August tribunal, as organized by the fathers of the
>republic: all are but amplified explanations of the power they
>hope to acquire by the adoption of the said amendment."
> "To conceal from the people the immense alteration of the
>fundamental law they intended to accomplish by the said
>amendment, they gilded the same with propositions of justice..."
> "It imposes new prohibitions upon the power of the State to
>pass laws, and interdicts the execution of such part of the
>common law as the national judiciary may esteem inconsistent with
>the vague provisions of the said amendment; made vague for the
>purpose of facilitating encroachment upon the lives, liberties
>and property of the people."
> "It enlarges the judicial power of the United States so as
>to bring every law passed by the State, and every principle of
>the common law relating to life, liberty, or property, within the
>jurisdiction of the Federal tribunals, and charges those
>tribunals with duties, to the due performance of which they, from
>their nature and organization, and their distance from the
>people, are unequal."
> "It makes a new apportionment of representatives in the
>National courts, for no other reason than thereby to secure to a
>faction a sufficient number of votes of a servile and ignorant
>race to outweigh the intelligent voices of their own."
> "This Legislature, feeling conscious of the support of the
>largest majority of the people that has ever been given
>expression to the public will, declare that the said proposed
>amendment being designed to confer, or to compel the States to
>confer, the sovereign right of elective franchise upon a race
>which has never given the slightest evidence, at any time, or in
>any quarter of the globe, of its capacity of self-government, and
>erect an impracticable standard of suffrage, which will render
>the right valueless to any portion of the people was intended to
>overthrow the system of self-government under which the people of
>the United States have for eighty years enjoyed their liberties,
>and is unfit, from its origin, its object and its matter, to be
>incorporated with the fundamental law of a free people."
>(The 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States and
>the threat that it poses to our democratic government, Pinckney
>G. McElwee, South Carolina Law Quarterly 1959)
>
> "But there is another description of government, called also
>by publicists a government de facto, but which might, perhaps, be
>more aptly denominated a government of paramount force. Its
>distinguishing characteristics are (1) that its existence is
>maintained by active military power within the territories, and
>against the rightful authority of an established and lawful
>government; and (2) that while it exists it must necessarily be
>[229 U.S. 416, 429] obeyed in civil matters by private citizens
>who, by acts of obedience rendered in submission to such force,
>do not become responsible, as wrongdoers, for those acts, though
>not warranted by the laws of the rightful government. Actual
>governments of this sort are established over districts differing
>greatly in extent and conditions. They are usually administered
>directly by military authority, but they may be administered,
>also, by civil authority, supported more or less directly by
>military force." Thornington v. Smith, 8 Wall. 1, 9, 19 L. ed.
>361, 363. Macleod v. U.S, 229 U.S. 416 1913
>
> "While it is held to be the right of a conqueror to levy
>contributions upon the enemy in their seaports, towns, or
>provinces which may be in his military possession by conquest,
>and to apply the proceeds to defray the expenses of the war, this
>right is to be exercised within such limitations that it may not
>savor of confiscation. As the result of military occupation, the
>taxes and duties payable by the inhabitants to the former
>government become payable to the military occupant, unless he
>sees fit to substitute for them other rates or modes of
>contributions to the expenses of the government. The moneys so
>collected are to be used for the purpose of paying the expenses
>of government under the military occupation, such as the salaries
>of the judges and the police, and for the payment of the expenses
>of the army." Macleod v. U.S, 229 U.S. 416 1913
>
> "In New Orleans v. New York Mail S. S. Co. 20 Wall. 387,
>393, 22 L. ed. 354, it was said, with respect to the powers of
>the military government over the city of New Orleans after its
>conquest, that it had 'the same power and rights in territory
>held by conquest as if the territory had belonged to a foreign
>country and had been subjugated in a foreign war. In such cases
>the conquering power has the right to displace the pre-existing
>authority, and to assume to such extent as it may deem proper the
>exercise by itself of all the powers and functions of government.
>It may appoint all the necessary officers and clothe them with
>designated powers, larger or smaller, according to its pleasure.
>It may prescribe the revenues to be paid, and apply them to its
>own use or otherwise. It may do anything necessary to strengthen
>itself and weaken the enemy. There is no limit to the powers that
>may be exerted in such cases, save those which are found in the
>laws and usages of war." Dooley v. U.S., 182 U.S. 222 1901
>
> "The decisions wherein grounds were found for avoiding a
>ruling on the constitutionality of the Reconstruction Act leave
>the impression that our highest tribunal failed in these cases to
>measure up to the standard of the judiciary in a constitutional
>democracy. If the Reconstruction Act was unconstitutional, the
>people oppressed by it were entitled to protection by the
>judiciary against such unconstitutional oppression." Tulane Law
>Review, The Dubious Origin Of The Fourteenth Amendment. page 34
>
> "The adversary or the skeptic might assert that, after a
>lapse of more than eighty years, it is too late to question the
>constitutionality or validity of the coerced ratifications of the
>Fourteenth Amendment even on substantial and serious grounds.
>The ready answer is that there is no statute of limitations that
>will cure a gross violation of the amendment procedure laid down
>by Article V of the Constitution." Tulane Law Review, The Dubious
>Origin Of The Fourteenth Amendment. page 43
>
>The North Carolina Legislature protested [by "Resolution" of
>December 6, 1866] as follows:
>
> "The Federal Constitution declare, in substance, that
>Congress shall consist of a House of Representatives, composed of
>members apportioned among the respective States in the ratio of
>their population, and of a Senate, composed of two members from
>each State. And IN THE ARTICLE WHICH CONCERNS AMENDMENTS, IT IS
>EXPRESSLY PROVIDED THAT `NO STATE, WITHOUT ITS CONSENT, SHALL BE
>DEPRIVED OF ITS EQUAL SUFFRAGE IN THE SENATE.' THE CONTEMPLATED
>AMENDMENT WAS NOT PROPOSED TO THE STATES BY A CONGRESS THUS
>CONSTITUTED. At the time of its adoption, the eleven seceding
>States were deprived of representation both in the Senate and
>House, although they all, except the State of Texas, had Senators
>and Representatives duly elected and claiming their privileges
>under the Constitution. In consequence of this, these States had
>no voice on the important question of proposing the Amendment.
>HAD THEY BEEN ALLOWED TO GIVE THEIR VOTES, THE PROPOSITION WOULD
>DOUBTLESS HAVE FAILED TO COMMAND THE REQUIRED TWO-THIRDS
>MAJORITY...."
>
> "If the votes of these States are necessary to a valid
>ratification of the Amendment, they were equally necessary on the
>question of proposing it to the States; for it would be
>difficult, in the opinion of the Committee, to show by what
>process in logic, men of intelligence would arrive at a different
>conclusion." North Carolina Senate Journal, 1866-67, pp. 92 and
>93.
>
> "However, after you learn this information, if you do not
>already know it, you will come to the conclusion the Informer and
>I have come to. No reoccurring remedy will be obtained in the
>courts, just brief aberrations of justice based on the demeanor
>or impatients of the judge, or his/her lack of self-confidence
>based on the judges lack of knowledge concerning public policy.
>Once the judges know their decisions will not be overturned, or
>their careers damaged, defeat of patriot arguments will be swift,
>and the penalty for frivolous law suits will be just as swift and
>increase with intolerance of the Judiciary. I don't mean to
>sound like a stick in the mud, but it is true. Only through the
>education of the public, coinciding with the coming financial
>pain, will change the publics perception of their freedom.
>Unfortunately I fear it will be to late to make any changes,
>until Rome self-destructs.
>
>FOR THE REST OF THE DOCUMENTATION ON THE ABOVE SUBJECT MATTER,
>YOU WILL HAVE TO OBTAIN:
>The United States Is Still A British Colony, part I, II and III
>Or, you can contact the Informer, and purchase his Book called:
>The New History Of America
>(The above information is just part of my research, the
>Informer's is not a duplicate of my work, but further facts. Its
>title is self-explanatory.)
>
[end]
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