Rensselaer Union, Volume 1, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 September 1869 — Attorney General Hoar’s Opinion. [ARTICLE]

Attorney General Hoar’s Opinion.

United States Attorney General Uimk lias git c/I hie opinion upon tlie question of administering the test oath to tho IWnly elected Virginia legislature. lie decide* that while Virginia is under military rule, all civil officer* must subscribe to its provisions, nut the oatlt must not Ik* required of these present legislators because tlmrs it only a preliminary work—to ratify the 15th : niciidment to the United States constitution under direction of Congress. But here their powers'Mop until Congress can e?afill(W fltcir State constitution and th*e»<hj whether or not it is republican* in form. In other words, they an* not a legislature except in a certain restricted sense, and their duties cease when they have ratified the constitutional amendment mid (iihuiitted their State constitution to Congress. The Attorney General places the reln-l legislature of Virginia, (for if its members can not take the test oath they must have been rebels) so far a* t lhey can be made subservient to party schemes, and the legislatures of loyal States upon the same tooting: lie decides the body is not .1 legislature and that it can not make laws for the State, but it niay act in a capacity that is reserved to legislatures alone and pass upon questions affecting the general government.

Is it possible the administration is so fearful the 15th amendment w ill be defeated that it is williug to place the Southern States in the hands of the men who took them from the Union, that it may secure its adoption? Better keep those States in their present territorial condition for yeais to conic than to bring them in with the rebel element in control, if after carrying tho elections for five years npon the pro|*»siUon of cotu|H!lling traitors to take back scats ill the work of reconstruction, they are now permitted to have a controlling influence, w ill not the popular verdict'be that the republican policy of reconstruction has failed in those States? and thut it would have been as well to havo admitted them immediately at the close of the war? In what respect will they be better than Kentucky, which nearly every republican has wished Congress could get arcconstructing hand at? If these States are now to be turned over to rebel rule, will not Mr. Johnson's policy fiually prevail? If rebel administration is such a good thing for loyalty and republicanism in Virginia and Tennessee, by all means let us have it in Mississippi and Texas. lint all republicans now fenow that both Virginia and Tennessee are against h«, and they do not desire the other States to follow them. We still hope that Virginia rebels w ill not be permitted to steal into ] tower under the thin republicanism with which they have been galvanized.