American War

: Name: Alan-Eugene Thorn-Bacon; Location: San Antonio Township, Texas Republic

Technician Extraordinaire!

Electro/Mechanical, Assembly/Fabrication, Test/Troubleshooting, Repair/Maintenance, Calibration/Engineering, Statistical Process/Quality Control

View my complete profile

Information

American Hallucination

Vatican Assassins

Common Law

Rothschild Dynasty

Blog Roll

Doug Kenline

Silver Eagle Tap House

Section II - Art. 31-35

Art. 36-40

Art. 41-45

Art. 46, 47

Section III - Art. 48-50

Section IV - Art. 81-85

Section V - Art. 86-90

Art. 91-95

Art. 96-100

Art. 101-104

Section VI - Art. 105-110

Art. 111-115

Art. 116-118

Section VII - Art. 119-125

Art. 126-130

Art. 131-134

Section VIII - Art. 135-140

Art. 141-145

Art. 146-147

Section IX - Art. 148

Section X - Art. 149-153

Art. 154-157

The Reconstruction Acts,
Articles of War Against the American People,
Usurpation of States Rights

Modern America’s problems today stem from violations of the Constitution by the Representatives of the Northern states of the 39th Congress, the reconstruction Congress.

I am here to tell you that the 39th Congress was driven by evil and immoral people intent upon seeing that their will and not the dictates of the Constitution was their ultimate goal.

Here in the year 2004 we can see and feel the results of those violations.

But we don’t have the knowledge to correct this problem. It's not taught in school.

What are the modern problems of America?

Unaccountable Government, running helter skelter and defiantly secretive and unaccountable to the people.

The people can ask them questions and they receive no answers.

The welfare state

The socialist state

The loss of the 10th Amendment and the 9th Amendment

All states seem to be mere puppets of Washington and not the several sovereign states as originally designed by our founders.

The take-back of America begins with knowledge.

So, let's start that take-back now. Let's learn the knowledge it takes to take it back.

We are told that Reconstruction was the most troubling peacetime period in our history. But in fact, it wasn't peacetime! It was a war against the Constitution, our individual rights as state citizens and, states rights!

And it is being waged at this second.

We all see evidence of Reconstruction today - the Reconstructed American union. Where are states rights today? Is there any evidence that the Federal Government has any intention of strictly adhering to the 9th and 10th Amendments? They were erased without authority by reconstruction. Who believes that we still have them even though they are still enumerated in the Bill of Rights.

All of America's problems can be directly traced to unconstitutional Acts of the 39th Congress relating to reconstruction.

So, let's start at the beginning; In order to understand the criminality of Reconstruction as it relates to being the "logical conclusion to the war" let's look at the official object of the war.

What the people and the soldiers were originally told the object for which they were fighting. The object which dictated the orders of the Army in the field. The object that tells the military their lawful objectives, which in turn dictates to them, objects which when completed, draw the war to a close. The object of the war as stated by both houses of Congress in July 1861 was: "… that this war is not prosecuted upon our part in any spirit of oppression, nor for the purpose of conquest or subjugation, nor for the purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions of those States, … and to preserve the Union, with all the dignity, equality, and rights of the several states unimpaired; that as soon as these objects are accomplished the war ought to cease.

What did reconstruction do?

To see what reconstruction did let's look at the opinion of the Attorney General, President Andrew Johnson’s vetoes, the writings of James G. Blaine the radical Republican Representative from Maine and the democratic party platforms of some of the northern states.

It has to be mentioned at this time that these Acts were passed in times of peace. Remember, in peacetime Congress is bound by the Constitution. They have no authority to implement the laws of war in times of peace.

The insurrection ended by Proclamation April 2, 1866. (No. 1, 14 Stat.811.)

The Reconstruction Acts were set up by 2 preceding Acts from 1866.

Refugee and Freedmen Bureau Act July 16, 1866. (ch. 200, 14 Stat.173.)

Civil Rights Act. April 9, 1866. (ch. 31, 14 Stat 27.)

Let's look at these Acts which set up reconstruction and see what they are about. Were they Unconstitutional? What does Unconstitutional mean?

Unconstitutional Act - defined - an unconstitutional act is not a law. It confers no rights. It imposes no duties. It affords no protection. It creates no office. It is in legal contemplation as inoperative as though it had never been passed. Therefore an unconstitutional act purporting to create an office gives no validity to the acts of a person acting under color of its authority. Norton v. Shelby County, 6 S.Ct. 1121.

An "unconstitutional act" constitutes a protection to no one who has acted under it, and no one can be punished for having refused obedience to it before the decision was made.

A legislative act in conflict with the Constitution is not only illegal or voidable, but absolutely void. It is as if never enacted, and no subsequent change of the Constitution removing the restriction could validate it or breathe into it the breath of life. In re Rahrer, 43 F. 556, 558, 10 L.R.A.444.

President Andrew Johnson tells us that there are several important issues immediately at hand concerning these Acts. We want to look at them from a Constitutional point of view. Did Congress have specifically enumerated Constitutional authority to enact these laws?

Civil Rights Bill

Now let's start getting politically incorrect. I am about to raise the dander of those who fear history and are stuck in political correctness.

Let's review the Civil Rights Bill that was passed over the Presidents veto.

President Johnson tells us that there are several important issues immediately at hand. We want to look at this from a Constitutional point of view. Did Congress have specifically enumerated Constitutional authority to enact these laws? Remember this law is still on the books as 42 USC 1982, 1987 and 1988.

Creates the "federal United States citizen"

Subjugates state Courts to federal will. (Do you understand that?)

In the words of President Johnson; "It establishes for the security of the colored race safeguards which go infinitely beyond any that the General Government had ever provided for the white race. In fact, the distinction of race and color is by the bill made to operate in favor of the colored and against the white race."

It was an "absorption and assumption of power by the General Government which, if acquiesced in, must sap and destroy our federative system of limited powers and break down the barriers which preserve the rights of the States."- It destroys "States Rights"

Veto-Civil Rights Bill

Passed April 9, 1866 -after peace Proclamation of April 2, 1866

I believe that Blacks don't need Civil Rights! - They need freedom! Their subjugation means white subjugation. The Black/White issue must be squarely faced.

We begin with President Andrew Johnson's Words in his veto of the Civil Rights Bill:

"I regret that the bill, which has passed both Houses of Congress, entitled "An act to protect all persons in the United States in their civil rights and furnish the means of their vindication," contains provisions which I cannot approve consistently with my sense of duty to the whole people and my obligations to the Constitution of the United States."

• Look for the infamous "federal United States citizen" and see if it is truly a different kind of citizenship and see if it applies only to Blacks. A lot of people think that it solely relates to Blacks.

"By the first section of the bill all persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are declared to be citizens of the United States. This provision comprehends the Chinese of the Pacific States, Indians subject to taxation, the people called gypsies, as well as the entire race designated as blacks, people of color, negroes, mulattoes, and persons of African blood. Every individual of these races born in the United States is by the bill made a citizen of the United States.

It does not purport to declare or confer any other right of citizenship than Federal citizenship. [Article I, Sect. 8 cl. 17 citizenship] It does not purport to give these classes of persons any status as citizens of States… The power to confer the right of State citizenship is just as exclusively with the several States as the power to confer the right of Federal citizenship is with Congress."

[Another part of the bill is recited as follows;]

"In other words, when a State judge, acting upon a question involving a conflict between a State law and a Federal law, and bound, according to his own judgment and responsibility, to give an impartial decision between the two, comes to the conclusion that the State law is valid and the Federal law is invalid, he must not follow the dictates of his own judgment, at the peril of fine and imprisonment. The legislative department of the Government of the United States thus takes from the judicial department of the States the sacred and exclusive duty of judicial decision, and converts the State judge into a mere ministerial officer, bound to decide according to the will of Congress."

[Do we have a change in state judges being bound by federal laws which conflict with state laws? Yes! The Federal government is beginning to encroach upon the judicial branch of the states- as a permanent condition.]

The Pandora's Box of federal encroachment into the States is opening wider. The federal demons are coming out. All this and we haven't even started reconstruction.

Andrew Johnson goes on;

"In all our history, in all our experience as a people living under Federal and State law, no such system as that contemplated by the details of this bill has ever before been proposed or adopted. They establish for the security of the colored race safeguards which go infinitely beyond any that the General Government has ever provided for the white race.

In fact, the distinction of race and color is by the bill made to operate in favor of the colored and against the white race.

[Remember who is speaking here- The President of the United States!]

They interfere with the municipal legislation of the States, with the relations existing exclusively between a State and its citizens - an absorption and assumption of power by the General Government which, if acquiesced in, must sap and destroy our federative system of limited powers and break down the barriers which preserve the rights of the States.

[ Remember this- He's stating that this will destroy states rights.]

It is another step, or rather stride, toward centralization and the concentration of all legislative powers in the National Government.

The tendency of the bill must be to resuscitate the spirit of rebellion …"

REFUGEE AND FREEDMAN BUREAU ACT

This bill makes an extraordinary military measure designed to suppress a formidable rebellion, a permanent branch of the public administration, with its powers greatly enlarged."(Note: It was changed to a two year enactment and extended in 1868.)

It establishes a permanent military jurisdiction over all parts of the United States containing refugees and freedmen - this is a permanent peacetime measure.

It appoints a Federal agent to carry out the new federal jurisdiction, in every county and parish where Freedmen are.

Creates the Welfare state. It creates federal public education. It makes blacks political pawns.

These are direct quotes from Andrew Johnson's Veto of this Act:

"The bill proposes to establish by authority of Congress military jurisdiction over all parts of the United States containing refugees and freedmen." [In times of peace]

"…the bill itself, should it become a law, will have no limitation in point of time, but will form a part of the permanent legislation of the country." [Makes military jurisdiction permanent]

"Offenses that may be committed by individuals should not work a forfeiture of the rights of whole communities." [The rights of the community are forfeited.]

"In time of war it was eminently proper that we should provide for those who were passing suddenly from a condition of bondage to a state of freedom. But this bill proposes to make the Freedman's Bureau, established by the act of 1865 as one of many great and extraordinary military measures to suppress a formidable rebellion, a permanent branch of the public administration, with its powers greatly enlarged."

[Notice what it just said; an "extraordinary military measures to suppress a formidable rebellion" becomes "a permanent branch of the public administration, with its powers greatly enlarged." - Permanent! War measures being made permanent!]

Let's see if we can spot the origin of the American Welfare state in the following quote from President Johnson’s veto;

"The third section of the bill authorizes a general and unlimited grant of support to the destitute and suffering refugees and freedmen, their wives and children. Succeeding sections make provision for the rent or purchase of landed estates for freedmen, and for the erection for their benefit of suitable buildings for asylums and schools, the expenses to be defrayed from the Treasury of the whole people. The Congress of the United States has never heretofore thought itself empowered to establish asylums beyond the limits of the District of Columbia, except for the benefit of our disabled soldiers and sailors.

It has never founded schools for any class of our own people, not even for the orphans of those who have fallen in the defense of the Union, but has left the care of education to the much more competent and efficient control of the States, of communities, of private associations, and of individuals. It has never deemed itself authorized to expend the public money for the rent or purchase of homes for the thousands, not to say millions, of the white race who are honestly toiling from day to day for their subsistence.

A system for the support of indigent persons in the United States was never contemplated by the authors of the Constitution; nor can any good reason be advanced why, as a permanent establishment, it should be founded for one class or color of our people more than another. Pending the war many refugees and freedmen received support from the Government, but it was never intended that they should thenceforth be fed, clothed, educated, and sheltered by the United States.

The idea on which the slaves were assisted to freedom was that on becoming free they would be a self-sustaining population. Any legislation that shall imply that they are not expected to attain a self-sustaining condition must have a tendency injurious alike to their character and their prospects."

"The appointment of an agent for every county and parish will create an immense patronage, and the expense of the numerous officers and their clerks, to be appointed by the President, will be great in the beginning, with a tendency steadily to increase."

"In this connection the query presents itself whether the system proposed by the bill will not, when put into complete operation, practically transfer the entire care, support, and control of 4,000,000 emancipated slaves to agents, overseers, or taskmasters, (DOES THIS MAKE THEM FREE -OR SIMPLY TRANSFER OWNERSHIP?) who, appointed at Washington, are to be located in every county and parish throughout the United States containing freedmen and refugees. Such a system would inevitably tend to a concentration of power in the executive which would enable him, if so disposed, to control the action of this numerous class and use them for the attainment of his own political ends."

[The use of blacks as political pawns. Blacks were not freed- they were just transferred to their Federal Master. To whose benefit is this? The blacks or the Federal Government?

Are blacks still used as political pawns? The 39th Congress is successfully recruiting ½ of the southern population (the freed slaves) to be their political allies. Are they still political pawns? - Can everyone say "Heritage vs. Hate." Are we their pawns also?]

In general the Refugee and Freedmen's Bureau Act, and the Civil Rights Act opens the Pandora's box of federal authority outside of their 10 square mile and into the several states. The result is the destruction of "limited Federal government," "states rights" "state sovereignty," and self government by the people, which is replaced by the creation of a centralized national government.

All of this happened almost a year before Reconstruction.

Now let's review the Presidents Veto of the Reconstruction Acts.

Veto of the Act of March 2, 1867

The President explains what events must take place under the Reconstruction plan;

"These events are, br> First, the selection of delegates to a State convention by an election at which negroes (note: The newly created United States citizen included; "Chinese of the Pacific States, Indians subject to taxation, the people called gypsies, as well as the entire race designated as blacks, people of color, negroes, mulattoes, and persons of African blood." ) shall be allowed to vote;

Second, the formation of a State constitution by the convention so chosen;

Third, the insertion into the State constitution of a provision which will secure the right of voting at all elections to negroes (Chinese of the Pacific States, Indians subject to taxation, the people called gypsies, as well as the entire race designated as blacks, people of color, negroes, mulattoes, and persons of African blood.) and to such white men as may not be disfranchised for rebellion or felony;

Fourth, the submission of the constitution for ratification to negroes and white men not disfranchised, and its actual ratification by their vote;

Fifth, the submission of the State constitution to Congress for examination and approval, and the actual approval of it by that body;

Sixth, the adoption of a certain amendment[14th] to the Federal Constitution by a vote of the legislature elected under the new constitution;

Seventh, the adoption of said amendment by a sufficient number of other States to make it a part of the Constitution of the United States. All these conditions must be fulfilled before the people of any of these States can be relieved from the bondage of military domination;"

"I submit to Congress whether this measure is not in its whole character, scope, and object without precedent and without authority, in palpable conflict with the plainest provisions of the Constitution, and utterly destructive to those great principles of liberty and humanity for which our ancestors on both sides of the Atlantic have shed so much blood and expended so much treasure."

"Our victories subjected the insurgents to legal obedience, not to the yoke of an arbitrary despotism."

"Invasion, insurrection, rebellion, and domestic violence were anticipated when the Government was framed, and the means of repelling and suppressing them were wisely provided for in the Constitution; but it was not thought necessary to declare that the States in which they might occur should be expelled from the Union. Rebellions, which were invariably suppressed, occurred prior to that out of which these questions grow; but the States continued to exist and the Union remained unbroken.

In Massachusetts, in Pennsylvania, in Rhode Island, and in New York, at different periods in our history, violent and armed opposition to the United States was carried on; but the relations of those States with the Federal Government were not supposed to be interrupted or changed thereby after the rebellious portions of their population were defeated and put down.

It is true that in these earlier cases there was no formal expression of a determination to withdraw from the Union, but it is also true that in the Southern States the ordinances of secession were treated by all the friends of the Union as mere nullities and are now acknowledged to be so by the States themselves. If we admit that they had any force or validity or that they did in fact take the States in which they were passed out of the Union, we sweep from under our feet all the grounds upon which we stand in justifying the use of Federal force to maintain the integrity of the Government."

- Remember that 360,000 Northern Soldiers died on the "grounds" "… that this war is not prosecuted upon our part in any spirit of oppression, nor for the purpose of conquest or subjugation, nor for the purpose of overthrowing or interfering with the rights or established institutions of those States, … and to preserve the Union, with all the dignity, equality, and rights of the several states unimpaired; that as soon as these objects are accomplished the war ought to cease."

Yet the Reconstruction Acts dishonor the cause for which they died. The result is that they were merely political pawns duped into enforcing the political will of the Radical Republicans to destroy the founding principals of our nation and the Constitution.

"This is a bill passed by Congress in time of peace. There is not in any one of the States brought under its operation either war or insurrection."

"Let us pause here to consider, upon this question of constitutional law and the power of Congress, a recent decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in ex parte Milligan."

"I will first quote from the opinion of the majority of the court: Martial law can not arise from a threatened invasion. The necessity must be actual and present, the invasion real, such as effectually closes the courts and deposes the civil administration."

"We see that martial law comes in only when actual war closes the courts and deposes the civil authority; but this bill, in time of peace, makes martial law operate as though we were in actual war, and becomes the cause instead of the consequence of the abrogation of civil authority."

Do we see the very real articles of war coming into play here?

Congress is enacting laws in open opposition to the laws of peace. And they are making them permanent! We see that we are in a permanent war until we get educated and mobilized in a direction that "will most likely effect our safety and Happiness."

Andrew Johnson goes on; "I now quote from the opinion of the minority of the court, delivered by Chief Justice Chase:"
"We by no means assert that Congress can establish and apply the laws of war where no war has been declared or exists. Where peace exists, the laws of peace must prevail."

"This is sufficiently explicit. Peace exists in all the territory to which this bill applies. It asserts a power in Congress, in time of peace, to set aside the laws of peace and to substitute the laws of war."

"The purpose and object of the bill-the general intent which pervades it from beginning to end-is to change the entire structure and character of the State governments and to compel them by force to the adoption of organic laws and regulations which they are unwilling to accept if left to themselves."

"The bill also denies the legality of the governments of ten of the States which participated in the ratification of the [13th] amendment to the Federal Constitution abolishing slavery forever within the jurisdiction of the United States and practically excludes them from the Union. If this assumption of the bill be correct, their concurrence can not be considered as having been legally given, and the important fact is made to appear that the consent of three-fourths of the States-the requisite number- has not been constitutionally obtained to the ratification of that amendment, thus leaving the question of slavery where it stood before the amendment was officially declared to have become a part of the Constitution."

"It is a part of our public history which can never be forgotten that both Houses of Congress, in July, 1861, declared in the form of a solemn resolution that the war was and should be carried on for no purpose of subjugation, but solely to enforce the Constitution and laws, and that when this was yielded by the parties in rebellion the contest should cease, with the constitutional rights of the States and of individuals unimpaired.

This resolution was adopted and sent forth to the world unanimously by the Senate and with only two dissenting voices in the House. It was accepted by the friends of the Union in the South as well as in the North as expressing honestly and truly the object of the war.

On the faith of it many thousands of persons in both sections gave their lives and their fortunes to the cause. To repudiate it now by refusing to the States and to the individuals within them the rights which the Constitution and laws of the Union would secure to them is a breach of our plighted honor for which I can imagine no excuse and to which I can not voluntarily become a party."

Veto of the Act of March 23, 1867

Concerning those authorized to vote in the newly reconstructed states; "…the male citizens of said State 21 years old and upward, of whatever race, color, or previous condition, who have been resident in said State for one year previous to the day of such election."

"Without these provisions no constitution which can be framed in any one of the ten States will be of any avail with Congress. This, then, is the test of what the constitution of a State of this Union must contain to make it republican. Measured by such a standard, how few of the States now composing the Union have republican constitutions! If in the exercise of the constitutional guaranty that Congress shall secure to every State a republican form of government universal suffrage for blacks (Chinese of the Pacific States, Indians subject to taxation, the people called gypsies, as well as the entire race designated as blacks, people of color, negroes, mulattoes, and persons of African blood ) as well as whites is a sine qua non, [That which without, the thing cannot be] the work of reconstruction may as well begin in Ohio as in Virginia, in Pennsylvania as in North Carolina."

President Johnson is clearly showing us that Congress is creating states that are not equal to the other states. Congress is going to force them into "re-entering" the Union not on an equal footing with the other states. Congress is also creating a state within the jurisdiction of an existing state in open violation of Art. IV, Section 3 cl.1 of the US Constitution.

Veto of the Act of July 19, 1867

These are a few of the direct quotes from President Andrew Johnson's vetoes of this Act.

"The veto of the original bill of the 2d of March was based on two distinct grounds-the interference of Congress in matters strictly appertaining to the reserved powers of the States and the establishment of military tribunals for the trial of citizens in time of peace."

"Another ground on which these reconstruction acts are attempted to be sustained is this:

That these ten States are conquered territory; that the constitutional relation in which they stood as States toward the Federal Government prior to the rebellion has given place to a new relation; that their territory is a conquered country and their citizens a conquered people, and that in this new relation Congress can govern them by military power."

"A title by conquest stands on clear ground; it is a new title acquired by war." Remember that the object of the "Civil War" was not for any object of conquest.

These Acts are clearly a new war against the American people.

President Johnson clearly tells us that the principals upon which these Acts are based are War Principals. And they are still in place today.

"There is not a foot of the land in any one of these ten States which the United States holds by conquest," "We have not conquered these places, but have simply "repossessed" them" "From first to last, during the rebellion and since, the title of each of these States to the lands and public buildings owned by them has never been disturbed," [ i.e. The South Carolina State Capitol Building. If you will claim your Capitol Building as the Citizens of South Carolina, and take it away from the "United States citizens residing in South Carolina" then, and only then, can you dictate what flag flies at either the top or bottom of its flag pole.]

"The remedy must come from the people themselves. They know what it is and how it is to be applied…With abiding confidence in their patriotism, wisdom, and integrity, I am still hopeful of the future, and that in the end the rod of despotism will be broken, the armed heel of power lifted from the necks of the people, and the principles of a violated Constitution preserved."

With this understanding, were the States of South Carolina, North Carolina Georgia etc. as they now operate, created unconstitutionally? If so do they lawfully exist? Is the State of South Carolina going to maintain their war of oppression and subjugation on those who exercise their right to lawful and constitutional government again? YES!!! Because these Acts of Congress are PERMANENT ARTICLES OF WAR designed to take away our liberties and freedoms.

And they are working extremely well.

According to the President of the United States, the Reconstruction Acts;

Created new states based upon universal negro (Chinese of the Pacific States, Indians subject to taxation, the people called gypsies, as well as the entire race designated as blacks, people of color, negroes, mulattoes, and persons of African blood.) suffrage and not on an equal footing with their sister states.

Are Bills passed in times of peace

There had been insurrections before and it had never led to disfranchisement or state nullification.

In quoting from the Supreme Court he states; "Martial law can not arise from a threatened invasion. The necessity must be actual and present, the invasion real, such as effectually closes the courts and deposes the civil administration." Yet he states that this Act of Congress imposes martial law in times of peace. In direct opposition of the Supreme Court.

"The purpose and object of the bill-the general intent which pervades it from beginning to end-is to change the entire structure and character of the State governments."

The bill denies the legality of the governments of ten of the States and annuls them without Constitutional authority.

"Another ground on which these reconstruction acts are attempted to be sustained is this: That these ten States are conquered territory and a title by conquest stands on clear ground; it is a new title acquired by war."

* The Reconstruction Acts are clearly articles of war against the Constitution of the United States of America. They are articles of war against the American People, their Rights and States rights.

They were put in place and enforced not by Constitutional processes or methods, but instead by political coercion and force for the sole reason that they had a majority to override vetoes and pass legislation that expressed the will of Congress and Not the dictates of the Constitution.

WHO BELIEVES IN THE 10th AMENDMENT - States Rights? TWENTY YEARS OF CONGRESS BY JAMES G. BLAINE

Radical Republican representative of Maine

"The Southern men who had defiantly rejected the Fourteenth Amendment, and had with confidence relied upon the power of President Johnson to vindicate their position, now discovered their mistake, and were reluctantly but completely convinced that the only road to representation in Congress for their States was through submission to the conditions imposed by the Acts of Reconstruction, - conditions far more exacting than those which had been required by the preceding Congress and which they had so unwisely refused to accept." (Tennessee did accept and was not reconstructed - Reconstruction was vindictiveness to the other states. All states were reconstructed by the passage of the 15th Amendment in 1870)

"The cause of this solicitude (concern) among Northern people was the novel experiment in the South of allowing loyal men regardless of race or color to share in the suffrage and to participate in the administration of the Government. Under any less authoritative mandate than that which is conveyed in a military order with the requisite force behind it, [ at the end of a bayonet] the Southern communities would never have accepted or submitted to the conditions thus imposed. But the sympathy which their condition under other circumstances might have evoked in the North, was stifled by the pertinent consideration that they had refused other forms of Reconstruction, and had wilfully drawn upon themselves all that was unwelcome in the one now about to be enforced. It was to be noted moreover that the feature which was most unwelcome - impartial suffrage -was the one especially founded upon justice, abstract as well as practical."

* What he is saying here is that those in rebellion and their posterity would never have self government again - This violates the Constitution - Treason shall not work corruption of blood. All of you, and your children, whose forefathers fought and signed the Dec.of Independence and the Constitution, are forever subjugated to the federal will, because of your "rebellion" Concerning the Reconstructed State Constitutional Conventions dictated by the Reconstruction Acts;

"All were ordained in the spirit of liberty, all prohibited the existence of any form of slavery, [This is a moot point - slavery was abolished two years earlier by the 13th Amendment] and all heartily recognized the supreme sovereignty of the National Government as having been indisputably established by the overthrow of the Rebellion which was undertaken to confirm the adverse theory of State-rights."

"He (President Johnson) had neither concealed nor abated his utter hostility to the policy of Congress, - a form of hostility that grew in rancor in proportion as he had been thwarted and rendered powerless by the enactment of the laws over his veto."

"His message was laden with every form of attack which ingenuity could devise to throw discredit upon Congress, and if possible to affright the people by the dismal consequences destined in his judgment to follow the flagrant violation of the Constitution which he saw in the Reconstruction policy. He appealed to the people on the ground of patriotism, public safety, and personal interest. He pictured anew the advantage and the grandeur of having the old Union fully restored; he warned the people of the danger of sowing the seeds of another rebellion by allowing continued maltreatment of the Southern people; and he appealed to the commercial and financial interests of the country by pointing out how every form of property was endangered by the chaotic condition of affairs to which, in his belief, the policy of Congress was steadily tending. Beyond these considerations he endeavored to arouse among the people all possible prejudice against negro suffrage.

He declared that "of all the dangers which our Nation has yet encountered, none are equal to those which must result from the success of the effort now making to Africanize [one] half of our country "We must not, delude ourselves. It will require a strong standing army, and probably more than two hundred millions per annum, to maintain the supremacy of negro governments after they are established,"

"The argument of the President…fell upon unlistening ears, making no impression whatever upon Congress and very little upon the country."

"The bills admitting these States to representation did not secure Executive approval. On the 20th of June (1868) the President sent a message to the House of Representatives with his objections to the Arkansas bill."

"The approval of this bill, would be an admission on the part of the Executive that the Act for the more efficient government of the rebel States, passed March 2, 1867, and the Act supplementary thereto, were proper and constitutional."

I "[U]ndertake at this time to re-open the discussion upon the grave Constitutional question involved in the Reconstruction Acts." He declared that "the bill assumes authority over States ‘which has never been delegated to Congress," and "imposes conditions which are in derogation of equal rights."

"It assumes authority over six States of the Union which has never been delegated to Congress, or is even warranted by previous unconstitutional legislation upon the subject of restoration. It imposes conditions which are in derogation of the equal rights of the States, and is founded upon a theory which is subversive of the fundamental principles of the Government."

Mr. Blain continues: "The vetoes did not evoke long debate in either House, and both bills were promptly passed over the objections of the President by a party vote."

"As the vicious theory of State-rights had been constantly at enmity with the true spirit of Nationality, the Organic Law of the Republic should be so amended that no standing-room for th[at] heresy would be left"

"Of the representatives on the floor of the Fortieth Congress from the eight States lately in rebellion, only two were Democrats. The senators were unanimously Republican. Of the aggregate number about one-half were natives of the South."

The states are no longer for "state Citizens" but instead represent anyone born in the United States who is subject to Congress.

"The first section of the Constitutional amendment which includes these invaluable provisions is in fact a new charter of liberty to the citizens of the United States; is the utter destruction of the pestilent heresy of State-rights, which constantly menaced the prosperity and even the existence of the Republic;"

*On this new national (federal) Citizenship

"Its opening section settled all conflicts and contradictions on this question by a comprehensive declaration which defined National citizenship and gave to it precedence of the citizenship of a State. "All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the States wherein they reside." These pregnant words distinctly reversed the origin and character of American citizenship." (Note: What was so wrong with the origin or character of American citizenship that it had to be reversed?)

American War

Saturday, May 22, 2004

About Me

Links

Information

Blog Roll

Table of Contents

Archives