Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 36, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 May 1885 — HONORING REBELS. [ARTICLE]

HONORING REBELS.

The Fourteenth Amendment Declared Noil and V’ol<h [From the Chicago Tribnne.l , The administration has been in travail over Lawton for some time, bnt it is at last definitely announced that the distinguished rebel has “dedined,” and, in orderAto “let him down easily, * the opinion of the Attotn'ey General as Jo his eligibility is published, together with a complimentary note frbm the President. Every Unidjn soldier ‘tvftd every patriotic citizen should read these documents carefully and thoughtfully. so as to understand how the work of sapping and mining is being carried on by the ex-rebels who are in control at Washington. Rebel Lawton was educated at West Point and afterward held a commision in the United States army. He took an oath to support the Constitution and bear true allegiance to the Government, bat when the Rebellion broke oat enlisted in the Rebel army.; and spent four years seeking to destroy the Government which had nourished him and to which he had pledged his faith under oath. In 1867 Lawton was included in one of the sweeping amnesty proclamations issued by Andrew Johnson, and the Attorney General now holds that this made the Rebel a “new man" with his gnilt “blotted out” and left him “as innocent as if he had never committed any offense.” This is comparatively new doctrine. Heretofore it had been supposed that the effect of the pardons and amnesty proclamations issued by Andrew Johnson was simply to relieve the Rebels from criminal responsibility or penal punishment for treason and to res ore them to the right of suffrage. It was not believed that the effect of these wholesale pardons was to make treason entirely respectable and to place the Rebels on nn equal plane in every respect with the Union soldiers. • : In fact the people supposed that in adopting the fourteenth amendment they had provided against unrepentant rebels enjoy<ng the honors and rewards of the Government. The provision simply was that no rebel like Lawton, who had previously taken an oath to support the Constitution, should be eligible to office unless he would apply to Congress and secure a restoration of his political rights. This Lawton always refused to do, and the Attorney General now holds that the Andy Johnson pardon washed this unrepentant rebel white as snow, while the provision of the fourteenth amendment seeking to make a distinction between patriotism and treason is wholly null and void. In toe course of his decision Mr. Garland says; “The question, then, for my opinion is whether it was the intention of' the fourteenth amendment to take away .the rights which the previous pardons had restored — or, in other words, whether it was the purpose of that amendment to cast a reproach upon the Executive Department of the Government by representing as unworthy of credit its acts of unquestioned validity by destroying the rights which had undoubtedly been vested under those acts, and by violating the national faith solemnly pledged. “It cannot be denied that the amendment is as comprehensive as language could make: it, but at the same time it nJust be remembered that the words of every law are to be taken in subordination to its intent, and that where they are general their sense will be restricted if necessary to prevent an unjust or absurd consequence which it must be presumed the Legislature could not have contemplated. ” The Attorney General does not state the case fairly. The question before him was not whether the fourteenth amendment should be construed to have one meaning or another, but whether it should have any meaning at all. If it will not apply to Lawton it is a complete nullity, and will entirely fail of the purpose for which it was adopted. The question which the Attorney General took into consideration was whether this provision of the Constitution was null and void or not, and it is, therefore, a wretched piece of quibbling for him to talk about construing words in accordance with the manifest intent when his ruling is that the provision has no effect “whatever, but is completely nullified by the Andy Johnson pardons. Equally sophistical is the Attorney General's talk about the legal rule which requires one department of the Government to refrain from casting reproach on another or bringing its decisions into question. He thinks that for such a reason the full efficacy of the Andy Johnson pardons cannot be disputed. But this is not a case between different departments of the Government. The fourteenth amendment was not the work of any of the departments. but of the people, who can question the decisions df their officials and even “cast reproach” on them whenever they see fit, and may effectually estop any obnoxious action by means of an amendment to the Constitution. Mr. Garland’s legal dogma has no application in such a case. It is with a poor grace that the Attorney General cites the noted “slaughter-house cases” as tending to sustain his doctrines in regard to Lawton. What was decided in those cases was that general language in the constitutional amendments could not be construed to have effects that the people never intended, and which were outside of the plain and unmistakable purpose of the provision. Mr. Gar and, however, construes the language in such a manner as to defeat the plain intent and make the amendment meaningless. What does he suppose the amendment was adopted for if not to exclude unrepentant rebels from office? If it will not serve this purpose what possible meaning or effect is there in it? Mr. Garland, however, is 9t the opinion that after a rebel secured an A®dy Johnson pardon it would be “unjust” to debar him from the offices and rewards of the Government, and he therefore feels obliged to construe the fourteenth amendment in such a way thatrinjustice” will not result. He accordingly deprives it of all meaning. The decision rests simply on the opinion of the Attorney General that it would be “unjust” to debar unrepentant rebels from office, and for this reason he construes the language of the amendment so freely as to nullify its meaning. Mr. Cleveland indorses the decision and regrets that he cannot have the “honorable and valuable services” of a Rebel who once repudiated his oath to support the Government. Under thi3 ruling the Rebel soldier occupies a much better position than one who served in the Union army. If the erRebels should gain complete control of the country they might declare all Union soldiers ineligible to office, and, as the soldiers on this side have no Andy Johnson pardons, they would be compelled to submit. It may be considered as settled that under this administration a Rebel soldier with an Andy Johnson pardon is to be ranked in every way superior to a Union soldier with an honorable discharge. ' ■“ ■ . "On the face of the returns it would seem that it is the desire of the powers that be ■to make Gen. Sheridan's residence in | Wash ngtoh as disagreeable as possible, j Sheri-Jan's greatest offense is that ho won several brilliant vie ones for the Union I during the war; but this, of course, is not t advanced as a reason for making the cli- ' mate of the capital sultry for hint