16

in a hopeless minority "in the halls of Congress," the inci-
dent is small compared with the sum total of their losses.

It would be inadmissible to question the sincerity of the
Reconstruction Committee in their apprehensions of such
extreme danger from the admission of Southern representa-
tives in the halls of Congress as they have so emphatically
asserted in their report. It must be taken as true that in
their view the danger is real and imminent. But considering
the difference in the weapons used "in the halls of Congress"
from those employed on that other "battle field," and con-
sidering that the Southern representatives, in disparity of
numbers, would be at as great disadvantage in the one, as on
the other, it is difficult to imagine a higher tribute than they
pay to Southern representatives for that moral power and
intellectual prowess which usually command success in legis-
tive halls, and which in the opinion of the Committee, if
admitted into the halls of Congress, would achieve such ter-
rible results.

Section 3 of the proposed amendment describes a class of
persons thereby declared ineligible to be a Senator or Repre-
sentative in Congress, Elector of President and Vice-Presi-
dent, or to hold any office, civil or military, under the United
States, or under any other State.

"Every person, having previously taken an oath as a mem-
ber of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a
member of any State Legislature, or as an executive or judi-
cial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the
United States, who shall have engaged in insurrection or
rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the
enemies thereof," belongs to this proscribed class.

Two things are inevitably admitted by Congress in propos-
ing this section as an amendment to the Constitution. First,
that there was no law in existence, at the time when the Act
was committed, which prescribed the proposed punishment.
Second, that Congress has'now no rightful power under the
Constitution to pass a law to impose such punishment.

If there was such a law, or if Congress had the rightful
power to pass such law, why ask the ratification of this
amendment by three-fourths of the Legislatures of the seve-
ral States to make it "valid as a part of the Constitution."

This third section presents a most grave question for the
consideration of the Legislature. It is this. Has the Legis-
lature the Constitutional authority to ratify this proscription
as a part of the Constitution of the United States ?

The Legislature of Maryland is vested with all general
powers of legislation appropriate to free republican govern-
ment. But it is limited by the express or implied prohibi-
tions of the Constitution of the State. The 17th Article of
the Declaration of Rights declares "that retrospective laws,
punishing acts committed before the existence of such laws,