Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 16, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 27 December 1883 — CIVIL RIGHTS. [ARTICLE]

CIVIL RIGHTS.

In view of the enormous Democratic majority in the House and the close division of parties in the Senate of the present Congress, it may not be possible to obtain the necessary two-t'hirds rote to submit the ciyil-jights amendment for the protection of the blacks proposed by Senator Wilson, of lowa, or any other similar in purpose. But it is nevertheless the duty of the Republicans to urge the amendment earnestly snd make it clear to the public that the Democrats stand in the way of a complete vindication of tlie United Stated Government’s power to protect all its citizens in the exercise of their rights. The constitutional amendments adopted after the crushing of the slaveholders’ rebellion were undoubtedly intended to repose in Congress ample authority to pass all laws necessary to that end, but they have proved inadequate in many particulars, and the late almost unanimous decision of the Supreme court of the United States has served to rivet public attention to that fact. But it is not only in order to give Congress authority to pass such a law as that which the Supreme court has recently set aside as not authorized by the Constitution that a supplementary amendment is necessary, but still more to take measures for the protection of citizens in the exercise of political rights which are denied in certain States by mob force and partisan violence, and also to establish the broad and essential principle that the United States Government may extend the same protection to ull classes of its citizens everywhere within its jurisdiction which other nations enforce in behalf of their subjects. The amendment proposed by Senator Wilson is brief and comprehensive. Its full text is as follows: Congress shall ha7e power, by appropriate legislation, to protect the citizens of the United Stares In the exercise and enjoyment of their rights, privileges, and immunities, and assure them the equal protection of the laws. This sentence expresses precisely the aim which the later amendments to the Constitution had in view, and it will apply to the protection of naturalized citizens when abroad as well as to colored citizens at home. The intimidation so widely employed in the South and the construction of the amendments adopted by the Supreme court have made it necessary to attach a clearer and more explicit expression of the purpose to the Constitution. The Wilson amendment will complete the conversion of the United States from a league of independent sovereignties, according to the old Calhoun doctrine, into a nation—a revolution which began with the substitution of the present Constitution for the original articles of agreement, and ought to have ended with the rebellion war. The authority of the nation has been vindicated by a successful defense of the Government against treason and armed rebellion. The nation now exercises the right to declare who shall be citizens of -the United States, and it is a solecism that its authority to protect such citizens in their rights and privileges should be denied or even questioned. Yet there are to-day 500,000 citizens in the South who are denied a right'to vote whenever they attempt to vote against the Democratic party, and the nation’s hands are tied in such maaner that it cannot come to, their rescue. The constitutional amendments which were designed to enable the Government to protect these citizens, and all whose privileges are abridged, are directed against the States, and the. States set up that they have passed no law denying the political and civil rights of the freedmen. It is the mob which does all this by means of trickery and violence; the States in, question will do. nothing to discipline the mob, and tlie United States Government has no authority to deal with it. It is only at Congressional elections that the United States has the right to appoint challengers, who are generally helpless where their services are needed; citizens are excluded from the polls, swindled in their contracts, denied the civil rights which adhere to citizenship, anjj,there is no remedy for it. When these discriminations are practiced and an appeal is made to the United States Congress and the United States courts the answer is, that the outraged citizen must look to his State and its agents for his relief. Getting none there, he finds hiinself a citizen of the United States merely in name. The Government which was able to put down rebellion in nearly one-kalf of its political districts, to free 6,000,000 of people who were slaves, and to declare that they should become citizens of the United States and of the States in which they reside, has still no power to guarantee ship by its own legislative, judicial and executive agents. The abridgment of the social privileges of the blacks which Congress is powerless to prevent under existing constitutional amendments is .trifling by comparison with the practical denial of political and civil rights by the controlling elements of Southern society who hold themselves independent of governmental authority. The people of this country are still bound up in the logical results of the war which established the supremacy of the United States government, and are still determined that this supremacy shall be used to insure equal protection to all citizens. If the constitutional amendments already adopted are not sufficient to enable the Government to exercise the National function the people will be in favor of extending and enlarging the constitutional powers of the Government. The agitation in that direction comes property from the Republican party. If thfl„ Jlempcr&tic party shall use its temporary advantage in .Congress to check tlie progress of Nationalism it will have to answer to the Amieriean people for its interference. —Chicago Tribune.