Staunton Vindicator

After the passage of the bills removing the political disabilities of two or three thousand who had applied, or whose names were placed among the applicants by their friends, we had expected to see the general bill, for the removal of all disabilities imposed by the Amendments and Reconstruction acts, taken up and hurried through both Houses of Congress. Yet we find the names of individuals daily presented and the general bill still sleeping on the table. The restoration of nearly all the seceeding States to the Union was a recognition by Congress of their "loyalty" and yet it has failed to restore many of their best citizens to their rights as citizens of the United States or even of their own States. This is a severe comment on the good sense of Congress, and is a stigma upon those therein who have failed to rise equal to the occasion and to set at naught that partisan prejudice which has so marred its legislation and the interests of the country for several years past.

There has, however, been a step taken in the right direction. The select committee on the removal of disabilities to whom the matter was referred, reported back to the Senate, on Friday last, the following bill with the recommendation that it be passed:

Be it enacted, That an act entitled "An act to prescribe an oath of office, and for other purposes, approved July 2, 1862, and all parts of other acts requiring the taking or administration of the oath in said first mentioned act prescribed be, and the same are hereby repealed.

This oath has been, in the main, but a stepping stone to the unprincipled. Some good men have taken it and that conscientiously, but thousands have merely used it for the positions and opportunity for plunder it afforded, some striking examples of which have been exhibited in the Congressional Halls. Would that we could add, "and only exhibited there." It has proven, as a general thing, a net to catch the competent and qualified and fill the majority of officers in the South with the incompetent, or unprincipled. It is therefore high time it no longer disgraced the congressional statutes.

It is said, with some degree of authority, that the above bill will pass both Houses. We trust it may, and we would regard its passage also as the precursor to the passage of the general amnesty bill, and the entering wedge to more magnanimous legislation on the part of Congress, and with the best effects on the interests and prosperity of the country.