Valley Spirit

WASHINGTON, CITY, Sept. 17, 1866.

His Excellency B. G. Humpheys, Governor of Mississippi:

DEAR SIR--The public prints inform me that our Legislature is to be convened in extra session on the 15th of October. The proposed amendment to the Constitution of the United States as a 14th article, may possibly be submitted to the Legislature for its adoption or rejection, and as our State has had no opportunity of being heard through her Representatives on this interesting subject, and as the people of the State have a right to know the opinions of their representatives on a question so vitally important, I adopt this method--the only one left me--of giving very briefly the outline of the opinion which I entertain in regard to this proposed amendment. No doubt the good sense of the Legislature will guide that body to a correct conclusion, but the interest I feel for the welfare and dignity of the State demand that I should not remain silent, when both are so deeply involved.

In the first place, I do not believe the amendment was recommended by two-thirds of the Congress of the United States. The constitutional House of Representatives consists of members chosen "by the people of the several States," and the Senate consists of "two Senators from each State." It is very clear that a body not so composed, or, in other words, where a considerable number of the States are excluded from representation in both branches, is not the Congress of the United States. Each State has a right to know that all claiming to be members possess the constitutional requisites. Mississippi does not and cannot know that the members who recommend this amendment were constitutional members of Congress. Nearly one-third of the States were excluded from representation in both Houses by a majority of members who assumed to be the Congress. If a majority may thus exclude States from representation, it is easy to perceive that it may go on in the work of declaring States disloyal and in the exclusion of minorities, until Congress shall be made to consist only of a few members from a few of the larger States with all others excluded. For instance New York and Pennsylvania may so manage as to control a majority, and begin by excluding first one small State and then another and so on, until all the legislative power of the nation is usurped and controlled by these two States, and ultimately even by the largest of them.

When the Southern States adopted the amendment abolishing slavery, the state of things was very different; they had not elected or sent members to Congress which recommended that amendment. But when this amendment was proposed, they had elected members who appeared at the proper time and demanded to be admitted, but were rejected. We are not, therefore, to be told that we have recognized this as a constitutional Congress.

But again: The President is a component part of the Legislative Department, and the Constitution declares that "Every order, resolution or vote to which the concurrence of the Senate and House of Representatives may be necessary (except on a question of adjournment), shall be presented to the President," &c. Nothing can take effect or be completed until so presented.--And the case is not altered because a two-thirds vote is required on amendments proposed; such resolution is not a complete legislative act until so presented. In no other way, except through the President can such resolution be communicated to the States. As the proposed amendment was not submitted to the President, it does not amount to a recommendation. It is a nullity.

But let us look, for a moment, at the provisions of the proposed amendment.

The first section declares that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." It then proceeds to prohibit the States from making or enforcing any law "which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens." It does not say what are privileges and immunities; that is left for the next Congress to provide in virtue of the last section, which declares "that Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article." We may find Congress conferring "privileges and immunities" on one class to the exclusion of another class; or we may find Congress assuming absolute control over all the people of a State and their domestic concerns, and this virtually abolishes the State. Perhaps any State that has so little self-respect as to adopt the amendment, deserves no better fate.

The second edition, if my construction of it be right, would probably exclude one State from representation in Congress, as I suppose the number of male negroes over twenty-one to be nearly equal to the number of white males. It is, therefo,e, a mere effort to force negro suffrage upon us, whether we are willing or not. Either do this or you shall have no representation. It is presumed that our intelligent people would not hesitate long in making their choice.

The third section provides that no person shall hold any office who may have heretofore taken an oath to support the Constitution of the United States, and who afterward engaged in the rebellion, or who gave aid and comfort to those who did engage in it. This is a sweeping act of disfranchisement, which would embrace, perhaps, a majority of our citizens; for there are probably few who have not, in some way or other, taken an oath to support the Constitution.

Even those who opposed secession, and engaged in the war only under compulsion, would be embraced by this provision, as well as the man who had given to the hungry soldier a meal's victuals or a piece of bread; and also those who, in charity, had given an article of clothing to a suffering friend or relative in the army. Such a provision would be so contrary to the theory of our government, and so oppressive toward a very large population of the Southern States, that it cannot be supposed that those who proposed it could have entertained a hope that it would be accepted. They ought to have known, too, that such a provision was calculated to endanger the existence of the government, as revolutions may always be expected, sooner or later, from acts which disfranchised the enfranchised class. If the people can not exclude unworthy or undeserving men from office by the instrumentality of the ballot-box, then they are unfit for self-government, and the sooner they abandon the experiment the better.

I need say nothing of the fourth section, but the fifth is the Trojan horse abounding in mischief. It provides that "Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provision of this article," which may be construed to authorize Congress to do whatever it may desire to do.--Under this same provision, attached to the emancipation amendment, you have the Civil Rights Bill and the Freedman's Bureau Bill. It was considered in the Senate, just as I admonished many members of the Legislature it would be, to authorize these odious measures. We should profit by the experience it has furnished us.

I might have greatly extended by argument in support of the many objections to this amendment, but have deemed it sufficient very briefly to express my opinions, and to leave the subject for the reflection of all who may feel an interest in it. I will only add, that should this amendment become part of the Constitution, we shall have a very different Government from that which we inherited from our ancestors.

Very respectfully,

Your obedient servant,

W. L. SHARKEY

ELIZABETH CADY STANTON FOR CONGRESS.

To the Electors of the Eighth Congressional District:

Although, by the Constitution of the State of New York, woman is denied the elective franchise, yet she is eligible to office: therefore I present myself to you as a candidate for Representative to Congress. Belonging to a disfranchised class, I have no political antecedents to recommend me to your support, but my creed is free speech, free press, free men and free trade--the cardinal points of Democracy. Viewing all things from the stand-point of principle rather than expediency, there is a fixed uniform law, as yet unrecognized by either of the leading parties, governing alike the social and political life of men and nations. The republican party has occasionally a clear vision of personal rights, while in its protective policy it seems wholly blind to the rights of property and interests in commerce; while it recognizes the duty of benevolence between man and man, it teaches the narrowest selfishness in trade between nations. The Democrats, and on the contrary, while holding sound and liberal principles in trade and commerce, have ever in their political affiliations maintained the idea of class and caste among men, an idea wholly at variance with the genius of our free institutions, and fatal to a high civilization. One party fills at one point, and one at another. In asking your suffrages--believing alike in free men and free trade--I could not represent either party as now constituted.

Nevertheless, as an independent candidate, I desire an election at this time as a rebuke to the dominant party for its regressive legislation in so amending the Constitution to make invidious distinctions on the ground of sex.

That instrument recognizes as persons all citizens who obey the laws and support the State, and if the constitutions of the several States were brought into harmony with the broad principles of the Federal Constitution, the women of the nation would no longer be taxed without representation, or governed without their consent. One word should not be added to that great charter of rights to the insult or injury of the humblest of our citizens. I would gladly have a voice and a vote in the Fortieth Congress to demand universal suffrage, that thiu a republican form of government might be secured to every State in the Union.

If the party now in ascendancy makes its demand for "negro suffrage" in good faith on the ground of natural right, and because the highest good of the state demands that the Republican idea be vindicated, on on principal of justice or safety can the women of the nation be ignored.

In view of the fact that the freedmen of the South and the millions of foreigners now crowding our Western shores--most of whom represent neither property, education, or civilization, are all, in the progress of events, to be enfranchised, the best interests of the nation demand that we outweigh this incoming pauperism, ignorance, and degradation, with the wealth, education, and refinement of the women of the republic. On the high ground of safety to the bastion and justice to its citizens. I ask your support in the coming election.

ELIZABETH CADY STANTON.

New York, October 10, 1866.

Home--where father and mother, brothers and sisters, have a unity of interest, and sympathy and affection--becomes in mature life the most sacred picture

"That hangs on memory's walls."

In after years when the destroying angel has crossed the household and silenced its familiar voices in their death, when the band of changeling time has torn town the woodbines that climbed above its portals and its windows, and when its paths echo only the tread of the strangers feet; how often does remembrance lead us back to its sacred precincts, and make us realize that the home of childhood is the brightest spot, the fairest oasis on the desert of life. It is during these moments of retrospection that the religious instructions of youth flow back upon the soul. It is then that we kneel by the side of her,

"Whose breast with gentle billow

Rocked to rest our infant woes."

And lisp over the prayers she taught us. Poetry has encircled the name of "mother" with halos of beauty, but its language will never be adequate to measure her influence. To her the first years of our lives belong, and it is then in her power to plant seeds of virtue that will bud and blossom in the soul when age has pillowed deep furrows in our pale cheeks. The prayers of a pious mother are a priceless legacy. They are like the down of heaven, which first ascend from the earth to the skies, and then descend to bless and revive the unfolding plant. Infidelity may array itself against the Bible, and its clamors may be loud among the assemblies of men, but it has not the courage to enter the sanctuary of a religious home, and there listen to the earnest prayers of a holy mother as she points her children to the throne of God.

Radical orators and organs have talked so flippantly of impeaching the President, have turned the most solemn and important duty devolving upon Congress, the Senate, and the Chief Justice, into such a commonplace affair that many people seem to think the business can be hastened over with the same facility as a law suit in a county court or a discussion in a country debating society. They forget that the Constitution carefully points out the routine to be followed when a man elected by the people of the united States to represent them and the power and dignity of the nation at home and abroad, is to be tried for the willful abandonment of his duty. They overlook the fact that all the details of such a trial are presented with a minuteness and accuracy that forbids those engaged in it from straying from the legal and constitutional path. The bill of indictment must be drawn by a certain specified form. The trial must take place before a different body. The Chief Justice of the United States must preside, and the Senators must be sworn as jurors to act on the momentous occasion, not as politicians, not as men eager for an excuse to depose a President by means of the 'block and the ax," in order to hold the reins of political power and thus be enabled to fill the different situations with their friends and tools, but as honest men, as patriots with an eye single to the welfare of the whole people, the unity of the States, and the prosperity of the nation.

The same care taken by the framers of the Constitution in hedging a trial of the Chief Magistrate of the nation with due forms and safeguards, extends to the specification of the bodies which are to participate in the solemn business. The House of Representatives is to prefer the charges.--The 2d section, article 1 of the Constitution thus sets forth the manner in which this Grand Jury to find a bill of impeachment against the President is to be drawn from the nation:

The House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people and the several states, and the electors in each State shall have the qualification for electors of the most numerous branch of the State Legislature.

It will be observed that by the provisions of the Constitution's House of Representatives, to prefer charges against the President, "shall be" composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the "several States." Now, will it be contended that a Congress in which ten States of the Union are unrepresented, not from compulsion, is such a Congress as the Constitution contemplated to bring charges against the President, and send them to the Senate? If the ten States mentioned neglected to send delegates to Congress; if they voluntarily refused to participate in the legislative affairs of the nation; if they surrendered their rights by a free will choice, the case would be different. But they are now asking to have their members of Congress admitted. That request has been refused, and a sectional majority has deprived Congress of power, under the Constitution, to prefer charges against the President, because that body is not composed of members chosen by the people comprising the "several State" of the Federal Union.

But if the charges could be preferred, is the Senate of the United States such a body as can be constituted a court to try and sentence the President? Article 1, section 3 of the Constitution thus declares what shall constitute a legal Senate:

The Senate of the United States shall be composed of two Senators from each State, chosen by the Legislature thereof, for six years, and each Senator shall have one vote.

Senators are now absent from ten States of the Union. They have been elected and have presented their credentials and claims for admission under the Constitution. But a sectional majority has refused their application. Under such a state of facts will any reasonable, fair man contend that the Senate is composed of two Senators from "each State?" If it is not, then it cannot try the President; for the Constitution not only declares that the trial shall take place before the Senate, but also specifies how the Senate shall be constituted. The jury must consist of two members from "each State" of the Union. A less number, unless absent from neglect on the part of the people of the several States is fatal to the validity and legality of the proceedings.--It would not be contended for a moment that, if a majority of the Senators from the Northern States were to say that Maine and New York and Ohio should not be represented in the Senate, then the remainder of the Senators could proceed in the matter of the impeachment of the President. And yet this is a parallel case with that of refusing Senators from the Southern States, so far as the constitutional right of a sectional Senate to proceed in an impeachment case is concerned.

It will thus be seen that it is not so easy a [UNCLEAR] to impeach the President as the Radical leaders would make a portion of the people to believe. The Chief Magistrate has rights which the Constitution guards, as well as the people. The Radicals, however, in order to destroy those rights and to obtain possession of the office from the moment when the summons for the President to appear had been issued, assume the position that the law deprives the Chief Magistrate of all the powers and functions of his office pending the trial. This is false in law, against all precedent, and dangerous in a high degree to the safety and welfare of the nation. If this course be endorsed, a political party may prefer articles of impeachment against a President at the beginning of his term; the Senate may deprive him of the functions of his office, and then refuse to proceed with the trial until the end of the term for which he was chosen, thus virtually making the election of a President a farce and merging the executive into the legislative branch of the nation.--But such is not the law or practice in impeachment cases. An officer summoned to appear and answer to an impeachment, may make his selection from three alternatives. He may appear in person, by his counsel, or he may decline to appear at all, and take the consequences as a defendant does in a civil suit. In the case of Justice Samuel Chase, of the United States Supreme Court impeached in 1805, the Senate, after organizing as a high court of impeachment, adopted the following as one of its rules of proceedings:

10. The person impeached shall then be called to appear and answer the articles of impeachment exhibited against him. If he appears, or any person for him, the appearance shall be recorded, stating particularly if by himself or if by agent or attorney; naming the person appearing, and the capacity in which he appears. If he does not appear, either personally or by agent or attorney, the same shall be recorded.

This rule is founded both upon the law and the reason of the case, and should govern all future impeachment trials before the Senate of the United States. The President may appear in person, by counsel, or he may not appear at all; but in no case can he be deprived of the functions of his office until a fair trial has been had before such a Senate as the Constitution of the United States declares shall try impeachment cases. There can be no mock proceedings, no bringing the representative of the people of the United States to the "block and the ax," in open violation of all constitutional rights and legal precedents. This may be accepted as a fact.

There are all these obstacles in the revolutionary path which the Radicals have marked out. They hope to depose the President and usurp supreme power in this country. But it cannot be done by carrying out the Butler impeachment programme. The Constitution forbids such an outrage as that contemplated, and the President is sworn to uphold and defend the Constitution by all the means placed at his disposal. If the Radicals wish to rebel against the law, let them make the attempt. Punishment will speedily follow any overt acts.--In the meantime, the common sense of the country will ponder such facts as those presented, and public opinion will see danger in over leaping the barriers of the Constitution in order to perpetuate partisan power.--Age

The Return Judges of the several counties of the District met at Chambersburg on Tuesday, the 16th and cast up the vote for Congress which is as follows:

Koontz (R.) Sharpe (D.)

Adams 2910 3134

Bedford 2573 2850

Franklin 4278 4162

Fulton 756 1073

Somerset 3079 1747

_____ _____

Total 13587 12966

Majority for Koontz 621.

It is very questionable whether American Radicalism in politics will accomplish more for the rights of the citizen and the peace of society, and the unity of the country than similar radical reformation doctrines accomplished in the religious world, and upon monarchies and other republican governments that rose and fell in the past. The doctrines of the numerous sects and churches advocated by the adherents of each particular persuasion, either prove or disprove the wisdom of their schism from the mother church. It is sufficient that many of the most intelligent and influential bodies of Christians are reaching the hand to span the chasm that separates them from Rome, to prove their desire for re-union. And the fate of Rome, of Greece, of France, of the islands--Jamaica and St. Domingo, and of Mexico ought to admonish the American people of the imminent danger of hastily and inconsiderately changing or altering the Constitution of the country. It is controvertible that progress always succeeds "changes of laws" and altered regulations of society. The finger mark of human progress and peace is frequently turned backward upon the dial of time after wars and revolutions. "There is nothing new under the sun but what has been," are the words of the wise man, and we vainly suppose that which rises before our vision in the vista of time has never had an existence.

We believe all governments are of God, and they that resist the Government or constituted authority, resisteth the ordinance of God, and will bring upon themselves swift destruction, either as individuals or as nations.

It can only be in cases where the rights of the subject or citizen are most frequently outraged and the government administered in reverse of the moral law of right that revolution can be justifiable, except in the forms prescribed by law. American radicalism means revolution, not by peaceable means, according to the forms of the Constitution of the country or the laws of the States, but proposes to enforce its behests by the sword, fire and the surveyor's compass. The little seed was planted in New England and has grown a great tree, and we are now eating the fruit thereof. The spirit that was formerly clothed with the humility and meekness of the Lamb, has thrown off its mask and the full fledged Hyena stands forth demanding carnage and blood to satiate its voracity, It can be recollected by men now living that the Radical party contains in its organization all the discordant and violent factions that have existed in the Republic for nearly half a century. The Whig party, Anti-Mason, Know-Nothing, Native American, Church Burners, Pings, the People's Party, or all opposed to Democratic rule, and now the Radical Republican Party. During the years of war in suppressing the insurrection and rebellion of one part of the Union against the National Government, and its authority, this party, by craftiness, hypocrisy, mystifications and fraud, has coiled itself around the American people, almost crushing the life of the Republic itself.

The charm by which their leaders bind the people will be dispelled, their masks torn off, their power broken. They cried loyalty, war for the Union, imposed upon the credulity of the people to gain power. and are now become Disunionists by denying representation, and revolutionists and anarchists and negro-suffrageites. That certainly is a progressive party. The principles they advocate to-day they repudiate tomorrow for more ultra measures. The last constitutional amendments are not to be a finality of their demands. They clamor for the abrogation of the Southern States, for Congress to pass their laws; to put down the white citizen and elevate the negro over them, and place the political institutions of those States in their control. They also clamor for the suspension or impeachment of the President. Again we see them calling upon Northern States to interfere in Maryland politics, and by force of arms retain a set of unscrupulous Police Commissioners, who practically disfranchised the State of Maryland, and recently excluded twenty-nine thousand voters in the city of Baltimore, and thus placed the city under Radical rule.

Police Commissioners, it seems, are appointed or elected by the Legislature of Maryland, and are responsible to the Legislature of the Governor of the State for their official conduct. These Commissioners appoint the Judges of Elections, and as is alleged, they have been guilty of gross official misconduct, and will therefore be removed by the Governor, the only person that has authority conferred upon him by the Legislature to remove them in the absence of the Legislative session. Forney sees the end of Radical rule. He endorses resistance unto blook; would excite an insurrection in Maryland, and if Governor Swan should prove unable to restore order and maintain the law, and should call upon the President for aid to restore order and suppress the insurrection, then Pennsylvania and the whole North are to take sides and prevent the President from doing Constitutional duty.

Forney uses his usual sophistry to mislead the people into error. He argues that neither the Governor nor the Legislature has the right to remove the Commissioners without trial before a Court to convict them of official misconduct. He errs greatly.--Those Commissioners are only amenable to the power that appoints, that is the Legislature and the Governor. Suppose those Commissioners were to be tried and convicted by the Court, before the Legislature could revoke their appointment; and suppose the Court would sustain the Commission--what then? Why the Legislature could never remove them without the consent of the Court. Away with such nonsense, the power that appoints had the power to revoke, or else the sovereign power of the Legislature would be superceded by that of the Court.

This last dodge of Forney, the generalissimo of the Radical forces, to inaugurate civil war, and drag into the conflict the other States of the Union, for a purpose merely selfish and political, (for this is a State broil in their own borders, which we are not warranted by the Constitution to interfere,) much reminds me of Lucifer the fallen angel, that drew the third part of heaven in rebellion, from the celestial abode to the pit prepared for them. The Democratic party is the only party of constitutional law, and Andrew Johnson the defender of the Constitution and the Union.--When the Democratic party falls the Constitution falls; when the Constitution falls, the Union; When the Union falls, the last hope of Democratic Republican Liberty will be extinguished on earth.

CONSERVATIVE.